Harry Johnson and the Headmaster's Socks
by Doghead Thirteen
Summary: Very extreme AU, myriad crossovers, many new characters, very super Super!Harry, majorly altered timeline. Entering Hogwarts, sixteen-year-old Hermione Granger is about to find herself thrown in at the deep end of one helluva mean old galaxy...
1. Chapter 1

**PLEASE READ THIS PRESCRIPT.**

There are some things I'd like you to accept before you read this work of fanfiction.

1) This is a severe alternate universe fanfiction, and it's not just a 'one-change' alternate universe. If you actively dislike that kind of thing, you're best to go read something you'll actually enjoy.

2) This thing is _complicated_. That's intentional, I like complicated stories. It's also at least trying to be humorous, but the humour is pretty dark at times and things get quite nasty in places. Just thought I'd say.

3) I am not a populist fanfiction author. I couldn't be a populist fanfiction author if I tried, because I'd get bored in a very short time. This won't be everyone's piece of cake, but you know the saying – you can please most of the people most of the time, or some of the people all of the time. I'm writing for myself, and I'm sharing in case any of you folks out there enjoy it.

4) Things that are different to the canon are intentionally changed, for example Hagrid's name, and Diagon Alley becoming Daigon Alley to get rid of the bad pun, and the same goes for the characterisation. They're acting differently from how they would in the canon because I've intentionally changed them. Different personalities respond to stimuli in different ways, and if you change someone's personality, having them react as if it was unchanged would be unrealistic.

5) The Harry herein is not a nice person. He's what you get if you let a fat sicko treat an innocent little boy like a rabid dog for fifteen years then send what's left to fight in a war that makes Vietnam look like Sesame Street; the poor guy could easily out-snapped John Rambo, and he's almost as paranoid as Alastor Moody. Dark? Yes. Evil? Could be. But don't ever question his honour, and he'll only kill you if he's getting paid – or you pissed him off…

And 6) If you like this fanfic, great. If not, that's fine too, but do yourself a favour if I'm really crawling up your arse that much and go click the little back button in your browser. Don't bother flaming me – I'll completely ignore you.

Still with me? Cool; welcome aboard.

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**This ain't no self-insert fic.**

**This ain't no slash fic neither.**

**This is Top Dog.**

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On the southeast fringe of the Rahavi'therata galaxy, there is an insignificant-looking little star system known to the universe as Tars Sahal'dat (the Imperial Star) and known by many of its inhabitants as Sol; as per usual, Sol pretty much means 'sun' in one of the local languages. Like most inhabited systems, it's been called a few other things in it's time; unlike many of them, its sole inhabitable planet goes by a rather unprepossessing name that just means ground.

That name is Earth.

Two hundred thousand years ago, Earth's nearest neighbour, the planet now called Venus, was the hub of the most powerful empire the galaxy has ever known; that empire is long gone, washed away by the fires of the never-ending wars that plague the universe.

More recently, up until about seventy-nine thousand years ago (a mere tick of the clock in galactic terms) Earth played host to an empire that called itself the Hardak Dynasty; like the Atlanteans, the Hardaks fell to war, leaving only a few remnants of their once-mighty nation.

The beginning of the 1980's had two extremely interesting events for Earth. First there came what was later called 'The Great Yodel', on August 12th 1980, now regarded as the 'loudest' psychic event in recorded history. The psionics shout, sounding like the cry of a baby, was heard over sixty thousand light years from its source; the town called Bristol, in the island nation known as Great Britain. In the Tars Sahal'dat system, the Great Yodel is confirmed to have caused seventy-nine head explosions, fifty-six spontaneous combustions, and nearly a million sensory burnouts, and in fact the galaxy-wide casualties exceeded the population of the Tars Sahal'dat star system by a dozen times. One of the very few active Earther psychics who heard it and lived to tell the tale without going insane likened it to being hit in the ear with a battleship keelgun. He was lucky; his eyes exploded and let the pressure off before it could burst his skull.

Then on October 31st 1981 the notorious leader of the Death Eater terrorist gang, known by the pseudonym 'Lord Voldemort', was killed by a freak accident while firing a soul-eater spell at a baby boy named Harry Potter. Voldemort was known to be primarily responsible for over thirty-six billion deaths across in excess of seven hundred star systems, including atrocities such as the total depopulation of the planet Karukarasha, the destruction of the capacity-packed spaceliner LSS-1018 Flying Yak, and the wheelworld massacre at Rokolushu, in which the spaceliner ADK-21288 Thevas'tran was rammed into Rokolushu Orbital Band at a velocity well above half lightspeed. His death was celebrated across known space, and HM Auror Department officers performed sting operations against many known Death Eater safe houses over the coming months; however, less than a tenth of Voldemort's forces were ever apprehended.

Now it's 1996. Fifteen years have passed since the Voldemort Insurgency came to it's unscheduled end, and things are about to get interesting again.

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In the northwest of Scotland near to a town named Mallaig, there is a place that has stood the test of time like few others, outlasting even the Atlantean Empire.

That place – a mighty, stunningly ancient castle – has played host to the galaxy's greatest Collegium Arcanum for over a hundred thousand years. From all over the known universe, the best, brightest and most talented students come to Earth to learn the art of magic within the towering walls of that tremendous ancient fortress, which has been known by as many names as the world on which it stands.

But, for now, its name is Hogwarts.

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**Disclaimer: I don't own the Potterverse, I'm just borrowing it.**

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**Top Dog: Enter the Fnords**

**Book 1: Harry Johnson and the Headmaster's Socks.**

**A Doghead13 / United Galaxies fanfic**

**Written & produced by Calum J 'Doghead13' Wallace**

**Brought to you by Hairy Scottish Git Productions, GMBH**

**This is not a drill.**

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**Chapter 1: In the beginning, there was the future.**

**(In which our heroine gets a new and sublime destiny)**

Hermione Allison Granger, age sixteen, was having a conventional day.

She'd been out of bed at half past seven (on the dot) and downstairs to porridge sweetened with honey. From there, she'd done her work-out, checked her E-mail, and was now relaxing with some light reading in the form of Steven Hawkings 'A Brief History of Time', a book she was enjoying immensely.

As per usual, she was alone, but she didn't really give a shit; she had her Internet friends (many of them at places like Harvard and MIT), her parents, her sensei and her uncle. All of them, with the exception of said uncle, were highly intelligent and articulate people.

Her father, Jeff Granger, was a practising dentist. He was also a fairly well-known builder of customised motorbikes; he'd had bikes on the cover of Back Street Heroes three times, AWOL twice and Streetfighters once.

Her mother, Anne Granger (formerly Withers) was likewise a dentist and a biker, though she just rode the things; Anne's father had been the leader of one of Scotland's biggest bike gangs, and she'd ended up learning to ride and becoming at least vaguely interested just because.

Her sensei, Kaneda Sabusoru, was an authentic Japanese martial arts master, teaching karate; she'd taken up the study following a nasty experience that would have been a whole lot nastier if it wasn't for her uncle's biker gang.

Her uncle, Stanley 'Crazy Stan' Scott was basically a permanently stoned new age motorbike traveller, so essentially a hippy gyppo on a Harley-Davidson, making him the biggest anomaly in Hermione's life. He, along with many members of his gang, was also a former member of 22 Special Air Service. He was married to Anne Granger's twin sister Jenna.

Hermione was just finishing up reading the fifth chapter when her rumination on the nature of the universe suffered an unscheduled interruption in the form of the shattering roar of a V-twin engine.

Setting 'A Brief History of Time' down, she checked out the window; right enough, her uncle was just pulling up outside on his midnight blue Panhead chop.

The bike had an old car (a black Ford Cortina) following it.

"What the Hell?" Hermione muttered.

She watched bemusedly as Crazy Stan swung off his bike and led the Cortina's driver up the path; they made a distinctly mismatched duo. Crazy Stan was a large, heavyset and somewhat overweight bear-like man with a bushy beard and long scruffy mud brown hair; he was dressed in tie-die flares, a Flower Power T-shirt and mangled Wulfsport motocross boots. The person following him was a rail-thin elderly woman; her grey hair was tied back in an ultra-strict bun, and she was wearing a sombre, uber-conservative dress that wouldn't have looked out of place on a schoolmarm.

Crazy Stan had a most un-Stanlike expression on his face; oddly sombre, like someone about to relay extremely serious news. Not the someone-just-died type, the we're-now-at-war type.

Thinking that, Hermione went to answer the door.

"Hello, Uncle Stan. Is something wrong?" she asked.

"Like, no, squirt." Crazy Stan said. "It's just, like, heavy. This is like, Professor Minerva McGonagall. She needs to like, talk to you, dig?"

"C'mon in." Hermione said. "I'm afraid Dad's out, so no beer."

"That's cool." Stan told her. "Like, Prof, this is my like, sister-in-law's like, daughter. Like, squirt, the like, Professor's got a like, proposition for you."

"I can talk for myself, Stanley." McGonagall stated. "Miss Granger, I am here to represent the United Nations Security Council Collegium Arcanum Branch, as per the Treaty of Roswell Accord on Magic Usage and Education…"

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On the southeast fringe of the Rahavi'therata galaxy, there is an insignificant-looking little star system known to the universe as Tars Sahal'dat (the Imperial Star) and known by many of its inhabitants as Sol; as per usual, Sol pretty much means 'sun' in one of the local languages. Like most inhabited systems, it's been called a few other things in it's time; unlike many of them, its sole inhabitable planet goes by a rather unprepossessing name that just means ground.

That name is Earth.

Two hundred thousand years ago, Earth's nearest neighbour, the planet now called Venus, was the hub of the most powerful empire the galaxy has ever known; that empire is long gone, washed away by the fires of the never-ending wars that plague the universe.

More recently, up until about fifty-four thousand years ago (a mere tick of the clock in galactic terms) Earth played host to an empire that called itself the Hardak Dynasty; like the Atlanteans, the Hardaks fell to war, leaving only a few remnants of their once-mighty nation.

Yet, in the northwest of a landmass called Scotland, there is a place that has stood the test of time like few others, outlasting even the Atlantean Empire.

That place – a mighty, stunningly ancient castle – has played host to the galaxy's greatest Collegium Arcanum for over a hundred thousand years. From all over the known universe, the best, brightest and most talented students come to Earth to learn the art of magic within the towering walls of that tremendous ancient fortress, which has been known by as many names as the world on which it stands.

But, for now, its name is Hogwarts.

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"So you're saying," Hermione said, "Aliens are in contact with the government, and you want me to learn magic? What are you smoking and why aren't you sharing?"

"Squirt," Crazy Stan said, "You're like, too smart to be stupid, dig?"

Then he changed shape.

Simply put, Stanley Scott was a werewolf.

Now, on hearing that, most people would think something like 'Ooh Argh Ravening Beast Where's My Silver Bullet'. All of which is bullshit.

The whole silver thing? A piece of disinformation designed to make it look too expensive to go after weres.

Ravening beast? Another piece of disinformation, this one come up with by the Spanish Inquisition as an excuse to murder defenceless women and children.

Ooh Argh? Well, OK, a hybrid form werewolf stands around nine feet tall and is composed of nearly a quarter ton of bloody-minded muscle and bone. So maybe you've got a point there.

There's a whole load of other things one ought to know about werewolves, but all of them can wait for another time; we're currently concerned with poor Hermione, who was sat gobsmacked in her living room while trying to get her brain around the fact her weird spliffhead uncle had just turned into a wolfman the size of an estate car.

"!!!... !!!-!!!" she said.

"Like, something like that." The wolfman said, shrugging in a very Crazy Stan-like way as he lit up a spliff.

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"Okay, let me get this straight. You, Uncle Stan, are a werewolf, but that doesn't mean you go bonkers at the full moon. You, Mrs McGonagall, are a mage. Why the particular term?" Hermione checked.

"There are several forms of magic user." McGonagall said. "Firstly, you have the witch; the term is not gender specific. A witch derives his or her power from a symbiotic relationship with a more powerful being. Secondly, you have a wizard; once again, the term is not gender specific. A wizard derives his or her power from the manipulation of magical artefacts. Thirdly, you have an enchanter or enchantress; the terms are gender specific. An enchanter or enchantress weaves the power that naturally flows through the world into effects, known as spells. Fourthly, you have a mage, such as myself; once again, it is not a gender specific term. A mage is much like an enchanter, but a mage's aura produces a small amount of magical power independently of the environment. Fifth and last, you have the sorcerer or sorceress; the terms are gender specific, and both are incredibly rare. A sorcerer or sorceress does not use environmental power; he or she does not need to, because their aura generates more power than a Legendary-class ley-line nexus."

"… whatever that is." Hermione muttered.

"Like, you know what a like, nuclear power plant is, right?" Stan asked. She nodded, causing him to grin stonedly. "Well, a like, ley-line nexus isn't considered legendary unless it puts through something like as much power in a second as like, a nuclear reactor does in a like, century, dig?"

"So we're talking stellar-level power." Hermione mused. "Okay, so which type of magic user would I be?"

McGonagall smiled.

"A sorceress." She said. "It's quite fascinating; we have a bumper crop of sorcerous students this year. Four, would you believe it!"

"Whatever." Hermione muttered, filing that away under things she hadn't needed to hear. It presumably meant that firstly people were going to be getting in her face, and secondly they'd be treating her like she was dangerous. Not what she needed. "So, what's the organisation of this 'collegium' then?"

"Much like a mundane college." McGonagall told her, and went on to go in depth and give a few demonstrations and warnings.

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---Eighteen days later; Friday August 30th 1996---

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Considering the sheer quantity of stuff required for attendance to this oddball college, Hermione had to wonder why her uncle had insisted on her getting everything by mail order.

Apart from the trunk. That trunk was the really worrying part; Hermione was convinced that either whoever had made her trunk had read way too much Terry Pratchett, or Terry Pratchett had hung out with whoever had made her trunk way too much. Her uncle had turned up with it out of the blue.

Simply put, it was the Luggage, complete with bad attitude and habit of swallowing things then seeming to contain only Hermione's laundry; any article of clothing she put in there got washed and pressed, and the thing didn't come with a user manual. Fortunately it seemed to have an infinite interior; she'd loaded every book in her collection (over 75,000 volumes) and her motorbike (a Norton Commando chop) into it without problems, and it still had plenty of space left. Apparently. The amount of gubbins required for the Collegium beggared belief; when Crazy Stan's friend Jim Bollock had been explaining what it was all for they'd run out of flat surfaces in the Granger household living room.

Twice.

And to add to her headache, she hadn't had time to get stuck into reading the course work and 'extra reading' her uncle and his friends had prescribed. When it came down to it, she was at a dead loss as to what was going on.

They were currently proceeding down the street in the middle of London on Crazy Stan's Harley-Davidson with the Luggage in hot pursuit. This did of course attract a lot of attention but,

1, Crazy Stan was used to that and didn't give a shit,

2, the fact it was the Luggage meant people wrote it off as a publicity stunt. Seriously. People are kinda stupid like that.

And 3, what they were doing was against the law. The international one.

Especially since they weren't wearing helmets.

"This is insane!" Hermoine yelled for the umpteenth time.

"Like, chill out!" Crazy Stan yelled back, then silenced her by opening his bike up. As it was a Harley-Davidson Panhead with straight through pipes, this resulted in noise something like 'BrbrbrbrbrBRAAAAAAAAM shachak GROK krunk BRAAAAAAAAM!' that made talking completely useless. Considering Hermione was used to bikes that went 'Crob-crob crobba crob' (her Norton, her father's Enfield and her mother's BSA-Bantam) or 'BRAAANNNG' (the KTM off-road bikes owned by the boys next door) a bike that snorted and bellowed felt a bit weird, even after having ridden from Bristol to London on the back of the thing.

As Hermione was just thinking that, Crazy Stan hung a hard left into an multi-storey underground car park; he aimed the bike for the bottom layer. Hermione noted that each floor was more oddly empty than the last.

"Where are we going?" she yelled.

"Wait and like, see." Crazy Stan shouted back, then turned the last corner, revealing that instead of another floor they were now in a long arrow-straight tunnel that sloped gradually upwards.

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The bike roared out of the tunnel and into the sick orange glow of streetlights. Wherever they were, they'd gone from a clear sunny day to a muggy hot wet night, slick greasy rain oozing from a sky stained by the streetlights, tens of thousands of neon-lit adverts and the headlights of thousands of weird-ass cars, many of which lacked wheels. The pavements were thick with multiple people scurrying every which what way; the buildings along the side of the street bore rigid awnings that shielded the road from the never-ending torrent of filthy rain.

"How come it's dark?" Hermione yelled, feeling quite fucked-with.

"We're like, underground." Crazy Stan yelled back.

"Then how come it's raining?"

"Like, condensation condensing on the like, ceiling, dig? So it's like, raining sweat, dig?"

"That's disgusting."

"Isn't it!"

Shortly thereafter, Crazy Stan hove the bike to outside a covered arcade entrance and helped Hermione off; he then spent a few moments helping her wring the filthy water out of her hair.

"Okay, kiddo." He said. "That's the underground walkway to King's Cross station. You'll come out on Platform 9¾, it's called that because there's also a hard light hologram walkway connecting it to the wall three quarters of the way between the mundane platforms nine and ten. Anyway, just keep on straight ahead. The admittance letter is your ticket. Trust the Luggage, it's got a good sense of bad situations. If something gets messy enough, you can get out of there inside the Luggage. I'll see you in October."

Hermione nodded. "OK, Uncle Stan. I'll see you in the October break."

Stan nodded again, and his expression got more unnervingly serious.

"Listen, Hermione." He said. "You've got the mobile phone I gave you on you, haven't you? If you end up in a really bad situation, speed dial 1. That'll get you through to my lot, and we'll come bail you out. You cool with that?"

Hermione nodded again. Stan grinned, messed up her hair and said, "Well, like, get mobile then."

And with that, he kickstarted his Harley and headed back out into the stinking polluted condensation rain of Daigon Alley.

Hermione watched until the hog's twin Maltese-cross tail-lights had merged into the smear of light, then turned into the covered arcade and started walking, keeping a hand lightly rested on the Luggage's lid; the enchanted trunk seemingly sensed her disquietude, as it kept hard beside her and growled at anyone who got too close.

**End: Chapter 1.**

General revision 18/ April /07, improvements to formatting.

Further general revision 25/April/07, more improvements to formatting.

Revised 18/May/07, replaced overgrown disclaimer with manifesto.

Further revision 12/June/07, changed some bits and added a prescript.

Another revision 3/July/07, correcting a stupid mistake I made before, and touched up a couple continuity errors. Duh.

THE TOP DOG MANIFESTO or WHAT I THINK I'M DOING

Well, I guess a lot of people just don't get it at this stage.

Get this; most of the decent fanfic ideas have been done. So have most of the ideas that suck. Some of the ideas that should never have seen the light of day have likewise been done. There's a bastard of a lot of Potter fanfic out there, and a pretty impressive quantity of Ranma fanfic too, so if you're going to take things in a new direction, you have to get radical.

If people like it, great. If not, hey, that's fine too; each to their own.

But what that means is I won't be going with any standard paths here. Oh no. People like Jeconais have already done a hell of a lot better job of, say, 'Ginny gets with Harry and yeah, it was good.' fanfic. That leaves the truly out-there ideas for nutcases like me; I'm not interested in writing 'Ranma-goes-with-fiancee-X' fanfic, it's been done to death by any number of people. You won't catch me writing any sort of a conventional fanfic, because it's been done any number of times and it would bore me into doing something else.

What does that leave me? Plots twisted up like a pretzel, megacrossovers and truly immense altaverses.

Welcome to Top Dog.

Doghead Out.


	2. Chapter 2

**This ain't no self-insert fic.**

**This ain't no slash fic neither.**

**This is Top Dog.**

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Hermione glanced around, glad the Luggage was affectionately rubbing it's hinges against her leg – the presence was comforting.

She was currently hurrying onto Platform 9¾.

Imagine an old-school British railway station. Now take the Moss Eisley Cantina and puree the two.

There were people of every description going in about a million directions. Here a nine foot humanoid cat was reading a newspaper. There a shambling pile of tentacles was getting a very normal can of Coca-Cola out of a vending machine. Here a humanoid poodle was manhandling a motorbike into the guard's van of a very old-fashioned train. There a perfectly ordinary and in fact somewhat librarianish girl was levitating her luggage into the train.

Hermione couldn't help herself; she gawped.

The gawp was just getting really bad when a smooth chuckle announced itself from just behind her.

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**For disclaimer, see the end of chapter oops, dropped my bloody mouse.**

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**Top Dog: Enter the Fnords**

**Book 1: Harry Johnson and the Headmaster's Socks.**

**A Doghead13 / United Galaxies fanfic**

**Written & produced by Calum J 'Doghead13' Wallace**

**Brought to you by Hairy Scottish Git Productions, GMBH**

**This is not a drill.**

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**Chapter 2: Being A Genius Has It's Advantages.**

**(In which our heroine meets our hero and our antihero. This author isn't sure which is which yet)**

"Pretty mind-bending the first time, isn't it?" the owner of the chuckle said.

He was well over six feet tall and muscular, accented by the tank-top he was wearing. His hair stuck up in wild spikes at the front, and extended down his back in a long lank greasy ponytail that reached almost to his knees. He had four swords slung across his back – a pair of katanas, a beat-up dingy longsword, and a massive straight-bladed mono-edged thing that looked like a ninja's sword on heavy steroids only fitted with a weird hilt – and a tangle of guns on his belt, including a pump-action shotgun and the biggest handgun Hermione had ever seen. His eyes looked like they belonged to a lizard, he had an arrogant smirk on his face, he had the biggest bike boots Hermione had ever seen on his feet, his hands were festooned with jewellery, and he was smoking a rollie. He also had a pretty teenage girl on a chain leash.

The girl didn't seem to particularly object to this; she was leaning against his back, completely relaxed and boredly examining her surroundings.

"Yeah." Hermione said, feeling a bit lame.

"I'm Harold Johnson." The guy continued, extending a hand. "But call me Harry, everyone does, Harold sounds too posh."

The Luggage growled at his extended hand.

At that moment, Hermione discovered Harry's Psycho Look. The young man crouched slightly, half clenched his fists, bared his teeth and **snarled** at the Luggage, sounding a bit like some frenzied wild beast.

The Luggage growled back. Harry growled harder.

After about twenty seconds of this, the Luggage astonished Hermione by edging away from Harry a bit; Harry continued growling for a second, then stopped mid snarl and straightened up.

"Sorry about that." He said. "There's a trick to getting Pratchett-McMulder Luggages to quit being overprotective, and you've obviously not mastered it. You just have to let it know who's boss."

"I've had it for less than a week." Hermione mildly remarked. Harry laughed cheerily and once again offered a handshake.

"Gotcha. So anyway, I'm Harry Johnson, and you are?"

"Hermione Granger." She said.

"Good ta meetcha, Hermione… hell, that's a weird name… it's from Shakespeare, right? Don't blame me if I forget it, I've got a shitty memory for names. Takes me at least five tries to get 'em." Harry rambled, firmly shaking her hand for a few moments then looking vaguely embarrassed as he finally remembered to let go of it.

"Anyway," he burbled on, "Let's go find a compartment that doesn't have arrogant upper-class fuckwits in it."

A girl causally wheeled a Yamaha V-Max past them. Hermione blinked.

Harry caught her expression and winked.

"Buckle your seatbelt, Dorothy." He said. "Coz Kansas is going bye-bye. C'mon, let's move."

"How do I know I can trust you?" Hermione doubtfully asked, suddenly feeling exposed in the middle of all the strangeness.

Harry snorted.

"You don't, so you're just going to have to decide, aren't you?"

It took Hermione about ten nanoseconds to analyse the available information and come to a conclusion. He had successfully got the Luggage to back off; he was festooned with weaponry; he could do any damn thing he liked and there wasn't any damn thing she could do about it.

"OK, you win." She said. "I'll trust you for now."

Harry nodded, and headed for the train, which Hermione now paid some attention to.

They appeared to be at the very end of the platform, having exited a set of steps with wrought-iron railings; empty trains were parked a line away each side. On the left side of the platform was sat a blood red steam locomotive of tremendous size and peculiar design. At the front it had a bulbulous red water tank with an enormous central headlamp; beneath that was a set of wheels with attendant suspension, pistons, brakes, connecting rods and other such ironmongery. Behind the tank lurked the huge boiler, surmounted by a low-lying smokestack; two huge metal plates that vaguely resembled elephant ears were sat each side of said smokestack. At the back of the boiler stood the firebox and cab and, surmounting another set of wheels complete with attendant pistons and workings, a huge coal bunker.

"Wow." Hermione said.

Harry nodded.

"Isn't she just? She's the only Deladarian Class 7 left in the galaxy. I've got no idea how the Hell she ended up on Earth, or why. Guess it's something to do with the way she's fuelled by a whacking great powerstone and a sustained fire spell instead of coal… dunno, really. Never really thought about it. Heh, bet you've got about a billion questions. I'll give it a shot answering a few once we're on the train, we've got eight hours to the Collegium."

"This isn't your first year?" Hermione asked.

Harry snorted.

"I've been offworld training in the martial arts for the last couple of years." He remarked. "I've done a bit of magical training, and I read up on what to expect, so I cottoned on to things like that." He indicated the locomotive which they were now walking past. "But nope, this is going to be my first year in full-time magical education. Hell, it'll be my first year in full-time education, period. That's what I get for being raised by my time-travelling weirdo daughter from the ancient past."

"… okay, there's just got to be a story behind that."

"Yup. Sure is. It's a long one, though. I'll tell you some other time." Harry told her, giving the Luggage a boost into the first available door onto the train. They immediately found themselves surrounded by people in their early to mid twenties, most of whom looked too serious and none of whom looked pleased to see the pair of first-year magical students.

"Hmm." Harry calmly remarked. "These guys look like a fucking bundle of laughs. I'm heading further back; if you wanna stay in Jerksville, your loss."

Hermione noted how his grammar had suddenly gone down the drain. She also noted the stance he had shifted to, and instantly realised he hadn't been joking when he talked about training in the martial arts.

He walked like a predatory animal.

Just as Hermione was thinking that, Harry stuck his head into a compartment with a cry of, "Lose the socks! This is a raid!"

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After the fifth compartment Harry butted into with a stupid remark (the best one being 'This is a bra inspection, get yer tits out!') Hermione was exasperated enough to forget to be nervous.

"This is seriously embarrassing." She said as Harry inserted his head through a doorway with a cry of, "Toes up! This is a robbery!" that was responded to with a heartfelt, "Piss off, squirt." from those within.

Harry smirked at her and handed his girl's leash to Hermione, stating, "Hold this for a moment, I gotta do something."

And, with that, he ducked into the toilet. There was a scuffling noise, and he came marching back out with a lunatic grin on his face; he took the leash back and proceeded towards the back of the train.

"Cheez it, I'm the cops!"

"HARRY!"

There were two boys in this compartment; one tall, rail-thin dark-haired young man with extremely pale skin and a razor-sharp Armani suit, the other a short, somewhat stocky, brawny-looking specimen with long mud-brown hair in a ponytail, dressed in 'smart casual' type apparel.

The thin one quirked an eyebrow.

"You've got no proof I did it, officer. I made certain of that." He stated in a softly Irish accented but profoundly baritone voice. The stocky guy smirked and suppressed a laugh.

Harry grinned. "I'm Harry Johnson. Mind if we come in? You're the first compartment we've found that isn't full of stuffy farts."

"Come on in and take a seat, Mr Johnson. And the same to your companions; come on in." the thin boy said, smiling slightly.

"Thanks." Harry said, towing his girl-on-a-leash into the compartment and depositing himself on a bench.

Hermione doubtfully followed them in. The Luggage doubtfully followed Hermione in.

The stocky boy stared fixedly at the Luggage for a few seconds; his eyes narrowed slightly, and he finally looked at Hermione.

"And you are?" he asked.

"Hermione Granger." Hermione said.

The boy frowned.

"Blaise Zabini. I don't recognise your family name; admittedly, the Shakespeare reference is interesting. Presumably you are the first magi in your family. How did you rate a Pratchett-McMulder trunk?"

Hermione looked confused; Blaise pointed at the Luggage.

"That type of enchanted guardian trunk is made by the Pratchett-McMulder Trunk Company. They only make Luggages for special customers, and a Luggage is worth more than a brand-new luxury yacht. When a Luggage's owner dies, the Luggage will accompany them into the afterlife. So, how did you get hold of one?"

"Is James McMulder related to the Pratchett-McMulder Trunk Company?" Hermione asked.

"As in, the Hell's Hippie second-in-command? Indeed; his father was one of the company's founder members, and as his father's heir…" Blaise shrugged.

"Well, that explains it. Crazy Stan is my uncle, and Jim Bollock is his right-hand-spliffhead." Hermione told him.

Blaise looked momentarily surprised. The tall boy looked up sharply.

"So," said boy mused out loud, "You'd be the daughter of Anne Withers, twin sister of Jessica Withers. Correct?"

Hermione nodded calmly. "Correct." She said.

"And that's how you manage to be Crazy Stan Scott's niece without being a shapeshifter." Blaise said with a nod. "Listen, Granger. I'll give you a free hint. Your father builds custom bikes, I know that much. Anyone asks, your father does custom work for the Hell's Hippies and you are not a relation, OK? Your uncle's the Seneschal of what's left of Clan Shea, which means he's got enemies who'd be all too willing to use you to get to him, and let's not even mention present company." He shot a meaningful look at the tall boy.

"And he is?" Hermione asked, jerking her head at said individual, who finally sat up and introduced himself.

"Artemis Fowl the Second." He said.

"Otherwise known as 'ulteriormotive at fowlindustries dot com'?" Hermione checked. Artemis blinked, looking shocked for about a nanosecond.

"And that makes you 'sidewinder at steelarmengineering dot co dot uk', correct?" he asked. Hermione nodded; Artemis smiled.

"It's good to meet you face-to-face at last." He said, extending a hand, which Hermione shook with a delighted smile. Finally meeting her best friend face-to-face was a blast.

"You took the words right out of my mouth." She told him.

"Wait a minute, you two know each other?" Blaise asked.

Artemis and Hermione nodded.

"Yes, we frequent the same forums." Hermione stated.

Artemis smirked. "The chance to talk to my intellectual equal is not something I make a habit of wasting. Sidewinder's insight into high-energy physics is… refreshing, shall we say. And surprising when it comes from a biker's brat."

"That's a Mensa biker's brat to you, wise guy." Hermione snarked; Artemis let out an evil-sounding laugh.

"You sound exactly like your online presence." He stated.

"Same to you, rich punk." Hermione informed him.

"I thought you two were supposed to be friends?" Blaise asked.

Artemis gave him a funny look. Hermione laughed flippantly.

"Oh, we are. What you're hearing is us knowing exactly how far we can go. Now, back on subject. What exactly does 'Seneschal of Clan Shea' mean?"

"It means the de facto ruler of what's left of the most significant group of shapeshifters the universe has ever known." Harry remarked, smirking.

"So," Hermione started, but she got interrupted; the compartment door came flying open, admitting a bleach blonde and a pair of shaved gorillas.

A hunk of blackened metal exploded out of it's holster with Harry's hand wrapped round the grip; in the same split second as it came up, a metallic cross between a buzz and a click echoed around the compartment.

Then an enormous gun barrel was eclipsing the blonde guy's vision.

"Get out of here, dorkula." Harry stated. "Some of us don't appreciate bigotry."

Hermione was staring at the gun. She knew her uncle and his mates carried guns – their gang name had started a few gang wars, and some of the people who didn't appreciate the joke were extremely dangerous. She'd seen one of them up close; a 9mm Beretta belonging to William 'Daft Willie' Stewart.

This gun was quite unlike a Beretta 93R.

For a start, it was over a foot and a half long with a bore well over half an inch, a hulking slab-sided apparition, and looked like it weighed about half a ton.

"An E-Mag." Blaise remarked. "Nice."

"I told you to leave, Malfoy." Harry stated, the gun not wavering. The blonde carefully backed out of the compartment, accompanied by his gorillas.

"Who was that?" Artemis quietly asked.

"Draco Mercurio Malfoy." Harry remarked, holstering his sincerely outsized gun. "Accompanied by Daniel Gregory Crabbe and Vincent Theodore Goyle, the heirs of his father's bodyguards, which doesn't look like a coincidence to me. Draco's the only child of Lucius Alphonse Malfoy and Narcissa Electra Black. Lucius Malfoy's the sole son of an old-guard Earther magi family; bloodline supremacists, you know the kind. Narcissa's one of the latest generation of Blacks; one of her sisters is in the clink, supporter of Old Mouldy, you know the drill. The other got disowned. Lucius is suspected to have been involved high-up in the Death Eaters terrorist organisation; some people say he was Mouldy Voledy's right-hand-man. The son-of-a-bitch has a lot of political clout and a shitload of money."

"You may be interested to know my mother's maiden name was Malfoy. Oh, don't look at me like that, she was disowned for marrying Dad." Blaise commented, noting the cockeyed look he got from Harry.

"Capella Malfoy, right?" Harry checked; Blaise nodded. "Grand theft auto, thirty-five counts, never got caught. She also knocked over a few liquor stores and a gun shop. Real hellraiser in her early twenties. Way I hear it, she grokked that the Malfoys were not-nice people early on and decided, the Hell with this, I'm gonna stir up some shit. She got disowned after causing a traffic accident that killed fifteen people. Then she married your father."

Everyone in the compartment was now staring at Harry.

"How'd you know that?" Blaise asked.

Harry gave him a deadly serious look.

"I can't tell you," he said. "I've only got two things in this world that are mine for sure, and that's my honour and my wits. And I won't lose them for anything. Never abandon a friend. Never betray trust. Never leave a traitor unpunished. And never break a promise."

Blaise nodded gravely.

"The Talos Order?" he asked.

Harry nodded. "Exactly."

"Care to tell us what this 'Talos Order' might be?" Artemis asked.

Blaise snorted.

"They're a religious order of sorts, from the Far East. Nobody seems to know exactly where they're based. They're similar to the Order of Saint Cable the Warrior or the Knights Templar. My father is a Talos Initiate; that's where I knew the Talos Code Harry just spouted."

Harry raised a languid eyebrow.

"They are where Cable Howlett learnt a certain martial arts style thought of as the signature style of his order." Blaise continued.

"You mean gun-fu." Artemis said, sitting bolt upright.

Harry nodded.

"You're looking at a seventh degree Knight of the Storm." He said. Blaise let out a seriously impressed noise; Artemis looked sceptical.

"Prove it." He stated.

Harry smirked and pulled the arm holes of his tank-top clear of his pecs, revealing a web of scar tissue; it looked like he'd had an incredibly intricate Eastern-style tattoo branded onto his chest.

Artemis emitted a long low and seriously impressed whistle.

"So… what's that mean?" Hermione asked Harry.

Harry raised one languid eyebrow.

"From the way you walk you're a martial artist. Karate, second dan brown belt, correct? I can't place the exact school."

Hermione slowly nodded.

"Right." Harry said. "In the gun-fu ranking system, a seventh degree Knight of the Storm is equal to a sixth dan black belt."

Hermione started looking seriously impressed.

"Impressive, eh?" Artemis remarked. "My bodyguard is a second degree Knight of the Breeze, and when he opens up with a handgun he's like a laser-targetted Vulcan cannon with legs and the ability to ignore certain things such as gravity, inertia and the laws of physics in general."

"Hmm. If you're Artemis Fowl, your bodyguard would be Domovoi Butler… yes, Master Tsung said he was a remarkably fast learner. He was with the Order for six months."

"There's a catch here." Blaise muttered.

"So… how long were you with the Order?" Hermione asked.

Harry looked faintly smug.

"Well… a year." He said.

Artemis started very quietly swearing.

"Harry, would you really have shot that blonde guy?" Hermione said.

Harry gave her a look.

"Listen, kid." He said. "There are three rules of firearms safety. Firstly, you never point a gun at something you're not willing to kill. Secondly, you always treat a gun like it's loaded. And thirdly, you only put your finger on the trigger when you're just about to shoot. Guns are there to blow things to Hell, and they are very good at it. You reading me?"

Hermione slowly nodded, her eyes getting wider as that sank in.

"Good." Harry said. He then hauled his enormous handgun out of it's holster, dropped the magazine, cleared the action, clipped the loose shell back into the magazine, shoved the magazine into his pocket and handed the enormous pistol to Hermione. "This is a League Navy Small Arms E-Mag in .60 Super Magnum calibre. It's the galaxy's most powerful production chemical propellant handgun."

"It's heavier than I expected." Hermione said, having to grip the massive pistol with both hands.

"Eight point six three three kilos fully loaded." Harry said. "It's got a twelve round magazine. Each shot is capable of blowing a hole clean through eight inches of high-grade steel at fifty metres range with standard velocity copper jacketed lead slugs. I've got it loaded with depleted neutronium jacketed APFSDS penetrators with a K-Hexa 5 hot-load, they're capable of punching clean through an M1 tank from a hundred metres away, because I use this sucker for three things; wrecking armoured vehicles, blowing heavy cyborgs away, and scaring people witless."

"So… what's that bullet description mean?" Hermione asked.

Artemis chuckled. "Neutronium is the densest material science is capable of manufacturing; it's used for gravity generation on some deep-space platforms. An APFSDS penetrator is basically a spike travelling at extremely high velocity; it'll punch through thick armour due to the immense kinetic energy of the impact, and the supersonic shockwave it sends through the armour is able to detonate fuel and stores. That's how an anti-tank sabot round destroys a tank. Having the penetrater core coated in a micron-thick layer of depleted neutronium puts about a quarter of a kilo of weight behind the penetrater, making it hit even harder. Driving it with K-hexa 5 instead of cordite is just obscene. That stuff is the most powerful stable non-nuclear explosive known to science. A hot-load means more than the usual charge of propellant. All in, I'm surprised Johnson's gun doesn't burst it's barrel at a caress of the trigger."

"Why are you carrying all that weaponry?" Hermione asked.

Artemis snorted.

"Because he's a warrior." He muttered.

Harry smirked.

"Now that," he said, "Is a secret."

There was a fairly long uncomfortable silence in the compartment, before Hermione finally decided to break it.

"That is about the lamest of all possible answers." She said.

"So? It's still true." Harry told her, shrugging. "I mean, it's partly because of work; I'm a mercenary, I specialise in anti-assassination operations, hostage rescue and extraction. The rest of the reason is a secret."

"It's because you're Harry Potter, isn't it." Artemis stated.

**End, Chapter 2**

**Top Dog will return.**

General revision 18/ April /07, improvements to formatting.

Further general revision 25/April/07, more improvements to formatting.

AUTHOR'S NOTES

The railway locomotive described is of the type known as a Garrett; this one probably resembles one of the AD60 class 4-8-4+4-8-4 locomotives built by Beyer Peacock for the New South Wales Government Railway. Historically, this 128-ton monster was one of the largest and most powerful Garretts ever built. Garretts are a pet obsession of mine; they're beautiful machines.

I believe I omitted to disclaim Artemis Fowl. Consider it disclaimed.


	3. Chapter 3

**This ain't no self-insert fic.**

**This ain't no slash fic neither.**

**This is Top Dog.**

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To his credit, Harry's reaction was not violent. He merely suppressed a jerk of his hand towards one of his guns, then raised an eyebrow.

"Oh?" he asked.

Artemis nodded calmly.

"Mr Johnson," he said, "I am the most intelligent Earther human since records began. You did a superb job of concealing your identity – with two very important exceptions; your first name and the fact that you have an immensely strong familial resemblance to both your parents."

"Is that so?" Harry asked.

Artemis nodded and fished a laptop out of it's laptop bag; he booted it up, logged in, spent a moment fiddling around, and then spun the machine around to face Harry.

"Indeed." He said. "Firstly, I had the chance to check the student list for the collegium this year; not only are you the only Harry on said list, there is this little factor as well. Observe. On the left, your father; James Potter. On the right, your mother; Lily Evans. The picture beneath is a blend of the two, which I generated using state-of-the-art face recognition software. As you've probably noticed, it looks almost exactly like you."

Harry slowly nodded.

"I see what you mean." He said.

"And," Artemis continued, "The apast's syndrome is inherited from your mother, who happens to be a weretiger possessed of a very prominent tail."

"So," Harry said. "What's to stop me putting a bullet through your head?"

"Firstly, witnesses." Artemis remarked.

"I can do killing the witnesses." Harry told him. Blaise looked stunned. "I am not a nice fucking person, Fowl. I am famous for what? Not dieing. I've made that my life's mantra; I am a survivor, and I will kill to survive. The Potter name is a bloody great target marker."

"Understood. Secondly, you do not have a reason to shoot me." Artemis said.

"Don't I?"

"No. Mr Johnson, I happen to understand what Harry Potter is taken to stand for; those who stand against blood purists. I happen to be of mundane parentage, much like Miss Granger or yourself."

Harry raised an eyebrow.

"And?" he asked.

Artemis snorted.

"I see it's time for a little lesson in politics. Do you know why being Harry Potter makes you a target?"

"The Hell do I know? All I know is, my parents got dead when I was a squirt, I got left with people who hated me, when I was twelve I ran away from home, at thirteen I'd already survived sixty-five assassination attempts and mastered five schools of martial arts, then at fourteen I twigged that it was something to do with my surname combined with the scar that was making these fucking psychotics try to kill me." Harry ranted. "Since I'd noticed I heal extremely fast and well – gunshot wounds aren't supposed to fade out in seconds – I ripped all the skin off my forehead and started calling myself Johnson."

"I see. There are three major political factions in Earth's so-called magical culture; the conservatives, the reformists and the so-called pureblood supremacists. The reformists stand for legal equality and an end to the species and genetic prejudices that control magical culture. Top of their agenda is the repealing of the Treaty of Roswell, and therefore official first contact between Earth and the Galactic Council. The conservatives are opposed to this stance. They divide species and genetic lines between 'light' and 'dark', which is a funny way of saying good and evil. Some species, such as cave elves and werefoxes, are automatically regarded as 'bad guys', as are people infected with the lycanthropy virus and the assorted forms of vampirism. Last of all, we have the pureblood supremacists. They're a form of magical Nazi. They believe anyone who's a member of a long-standing magical family is inherently better than someone whose parents are mundane, or someone of mixed parentage; they consider mundanes only worthy of continued existence as slaves. If they had their way, the only person in this compartment who would receive any form of magical training would be Mr Zabini."

"Actually, I wouldn't." Blaise said. "My father is a businessman, and extremism is bad for business. Grandpa built Zabini Enterprises up from a used car saleroom with his bare hands, and when Dad inherited the company he continued expansion. Every Dark Lord has choked corporate development, and exactly how long do you think the wannabe Death Eaters would leave a company like Zabini Enterprises private if they won?"

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**Disclaimer: They say the pen is mightier than the sword, even though it takes a lot more accuracy to kill someone with a single blow using a biro.**

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**Top Dog: Enter the Fnords**

**Book 1: Harry Johnson and the Headmaster's Socks.**

**A Doghead13 / United Galaxies fanfic**

**Written & produced by Calum J 'Doghead13' Wallace**

**Brought to you by Hairy Scottish Git Productions, GMBH**

**This is not a drill.**

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**Chapter 3: The West Highland Line.**

**(In which a train journey takes place, and a prank is pulled)**

"A little background would help here." Hermione said. "What's a Dark Lord, and what's a Death Eater, wannabe or not?"

"You don't know much, do you?" Harry remarked. "OK, it's like this. A couple of times a century, the pureblood supremacists spawn a so-called Dark Lord, in other words some fuckbrained wannabe Sauron. Death Eaters was what the minions of the last one called themselves."

"Back on subject." Artemis said. "The last Dark Lord is why the Potter name is such a big deal."

"How's that work?" Harry asked. Artemis sighed.

"About thirty years ago, a Dark Lord calling himself Voldemort popped up here in England." He said. Hermione noted how Blaise flinched at the mention of the word 'Voldemort'. "He was one of the more successful; last time a Dark Lord got so close to winning it was Lord Grindlewold, also known as Heinrich Himmeler. Simply put, Voldemort had won by default when he decided he was going to go and personally wipe out the Potter family. Nobody's sure exactly what happened, but it was messy. The only particular part they ever found of James Potter was half his left foot. Lily was headshot with a double-barrelled particle blaster, which mindwiped her and left her in a coma for five years; when she came round she had the mind of a newborn baby. As for their son Harry, well, Lord Voldemort fired the galaxy's most lethal antipersonell spell at him – a soul-eater called the Killing Curse. It hit Harry in the head, reflected, and blew Voldemort into a grease stain. Nobody has any idea how the Hell that happened. How much of this did you know, Harry?"

Harry shook his head.

"I was told my parents died in a car crash." He said.

"Not much, then. The problem is this; many of Voldemort's followers were able to get off by claiming to have been under mind control, and the damned government let them get away with it. Approximately two thirds of them are free on the street as we speak, and as they're all from old-guard pureblood families, most of them are stinking rich. I'm guessing they're the people who were attacking you, Harry."

Harry slowly nodded.

"That figures." He muttered.

"Other people are going to put two and two together." Blaise said. "So I guess it's our job to derail them."

Harry shrugged. "Yeah well, anyway. I don't trust you lot as far as I could throw this train, so watch your step." He noted Hermione's expression. "Look, kid. Trust is earned in blood. I make a point of not trusting anyone, it's a good way to keep breathing."

There was another silence; this time it was meaningful rather than blank, and this time it was broken by a duo of completely identical ginger people sticking their heads in.

"Hey, mind if we come in?" the duo chorused. "Everything up front is full of stupid upper-class twerps and the train's about to pull out."

"I'm cool." Harry replied, shrugging.

Artemis made an I'm-not-bothered gesture.

Blaise made a come-hither gesture. "Come in and take a seat, gentlemen."

"Fine by me." Hermione reflexively remarked. She then looked at Harry's girl-on-a-leash, whom she still hadn't got around to asking about.

The girl realised she was being looked at, looked startled, visibly realised what people were expecting, and made an I-don't-care noise.

"Thanks." One twin said. "I'm Fred, or maybe Gred,"

"And I'm Forge or maybe George," the other cut in,

"Weasely." They chorused.

"Harry Johnson." Harry said. "And this is my familiar, Carla."

"Hermione Granger." Hermione said.

"Name's Zabini. Blaise Zabini."

"I am Artemis Fowl the Second."

"Wow, there's some richie-ass people in here." Fred (or, of course, Gred) muttered in a just-audible manner.

"Of course; I am after all a criminal mastermind." Artemis said with a shrug.

"Okay, fair enough." The twins chorused, settling themselves.

"What ho!" another new person said, peering in. "Frederick! George! Great Scott, you pair of reprobates!" This new person was to all intents and purposes a humanoid poodle. He was just short of six foot tall, with milky off-white fur, a bright blue Mohawk, a red T-shirt and jeans; his bushy tail was idly wagging, and he had a mischievous gleam in his amber eyes.

"Fleggitt!" the twins chorused back. "Great Scott, you reprobate!" The statement was somewhat spoilt by their broad Scouser accents. "It's great to see you, man!" As they said this, they each grabbed one of the poodle-man's hands and started wildly shaking them

"Oh, I say, I say, calm down old chaps, I'll need those hands later, what? How else would I masturbate, eh what? Great Scott! Who _are_ your new acquaintances, old chaps?"

"This is Harry Johnson, this is Harry's familiar Carla, this is Hermione Granger, this is Blaise Zabini, and this is Artemis Fowl the Second. Guys, this is our mate," the twins enthused,

"Our main man," Fred crowed,

"Our buddy," George added,

"Fleggitt Marwillip Nelkroddly. Simply charmed, what?" Fleggitt butted in. "I say, haven't you ever seen a Frognorfian before, what? You look a little startled, my dear." This last was addressed to Hermione; the poodle-man with the Eton accent had proved too much for her weirdness compensation.

"Doesn't look like it." Harry mused, contemplating her. "The way she keeps opening and closing her mouth like a fish tells me she's never met anyone blatantly non-human before." He fished around in his pocket, found a cigarette, tucked it into the corner of his mouth and lit up. "Nope, she's genuine Earther know-nothing mundane." He turned his attention back to Hermione. "You look shellshocky. Wanna talk about it?"

Hermione rubbed her forehead. "Is it that obvious?" she asked. "I guess it is. Look, the problem is, ten days ago I was a perfectly ordinary genius from Bristol and all I had to worry about was which university to choose for my second diploma. Now? Now I'm on a steam train headed for Scotland to learn magic in the company of a chorus of redheads, a heavily-armed elf and a poodle-man. My weirdness compensation is running low. I mean," she gestured wildly, "What's the deal with all this? Why's it kept secret?"

"Good question, madam." Fleggitt said, completely unperturbed by being called a poodle-man.

"With a pretty simple answer. Ever heard of the Inquisition?" Blaise asked.

Hermione nodded. "Weren't they the people who burned old ladies?"

"Yeah, them. Anyway, in 1544, a village just outside London was mysteriously burned to the ground. Every last person in that village either vanished or was murdered. Earther mundane history has no record of why. The Kenti military definitely does, as does the Council of Magi. You see, a Kenti girl lost her parents and managed to wander off into the woods. Three days later, the occupants of a certain village found her and decided she was a demon since she looked vaguely like a humanoid cat. They attempted to burn her at the stake. I say attempted because her father happened to be a member of Kendarat's elite First Legion, and he and a couple of his squadmates found the scene just after those yokels put a light to her. As it so happens, she was just under five years old."

"Oh my God…" Hermione murmured.

Blaise nodded. "The girl suffered first degree burns over two thirds of her body before her father managed to get her out the fire. The squad's medic rushed her to hospital, she was in intensive for three years; her father and the other squaddies proceeded to rampage through the village killing everything in sight. Three people from the village survived the experience; all three were preteen girl who the squad absconded with. They then soaked the whole village in napalm and touched it off with a shoulder-launched missile. Whenever someone makes a bloodline-related slur, whenever someone sneers about 'stupid Earthers', whenever someone treats an Earther human like a barely-sentient yokel, **that** is what they are thinking about. Than and hundreds of much nastier cases which the poor offworlder didn't survive."

Hermione blinked. "That's crazy. The world's changed since back then."

"I've met that girl." Harry said. "Her name's Theria N'alat'yai, she's the first wife of the High Alpha of Prathi R'hara'tath, K'rath'han R'hara'tath. About a third of her body is made out of scar tissue, including the left side of her face."

"How's that work?" Hermione asked. "Isn't 1544 kinda a long time ago?"

Harry snorted.

"Kenti live a long time." He said. "Average lifespan 700 to 900 years. Hell, K'rath'han's six hundred and fifty. As for that being a long time ago, the Thousand Kingdoms of Kendarat have been ruled by the same family line for very nearly _eighty __**thousand**__ years_. The Inquisition is still around; they execute somewhere between five and six thousand people a year, mostly offworlder, shapeshifters, vampires or magi. Those fuckheads need putting out of their own and everyone else's misery."

"How come," Artemis asked, "You know the Kenti queen's personal bodyguard? I guess it's got something to do with that sword."

Harry shrugged. "Yes this is a First Legion warblade across my back, and yes it was made for me by the First Legion's swordsmith. The details are a secret, but long story short, the Thousand Kingdoms owe me one and they know it."

"I've got some more questions." Hermione said. "Am I right that 'offworlder' means 'from another planet', and if so what's the deal with getting from here to there, and what exactly is a Kenti?"

"Jeez, slow down." Harry grumbled. "Carla, gimme the portable hole."

His girl-on-a-leash fished a door-sized intricately woven cloth out of her pocket; he held it up against the window and tapped a specific part of the design, causing it to ripple, go rigid, stick to the wall and develop a wood-lined cellar about thirty feet deep.

Hermione was so shocked she forgot to ask how it worked.

Harry proceeded into it, rummaged around in the mountains of junk and weaponry for a few moments, and came out with a massive and extremely battered old laptop.

"Here we go." He said; he sat back down and opened the laptop.

"Is that what it looks like?" Artemis asked.

Harry nodded. "Yup. Last-millennium Old Atlantean portable mainframe, one of only six known to remain in operational condition and the only one with a Seletic-language keyboard. Don't even think about it, Fowl. This thing belonged to my mother, and if you steal it I will blow your head off. Anyway, here's my photo album… there we go. Hermione, this is me at S'tarak'hai's last barbecue, brag-fest and sit-around-shooting-the-empties."

Hermione looked at the image. It showed a distinctly out-of-place Harry sat on a garden sofa between a massive brown-furred catman who had to be at least nine feet tall, and a six or seven foot grey-furred catwoman. All three were holding guns and beers, and the huge catman was flame-grilling a steak. A pretty catgirl who looked to be about nine or ten was sat in Harry's lap with her arms wrapped round his middle; she obviously had a crush on him.

"The big guy's my friend Talon Alpha First Class S'tarak'hai R'hara'tath. The girl's his team sniper, Landwarrior First Class Theria K'rath'han. We were on the Kenti homeworld at S'tarak'hai's private hidey-hole up the back of K'ragath'tarl. S'tarak'hai's point man took the photo; the rest of the squad are just out of sight to the left."

"Who's the little kid?"

Harry sighed. "That's Princess Zarie Theria R'harash'gai, she's the Kenti queen's youngest daughter and part of the reason the Thousand Kingdoms owe me. She's also got a crush on me. Don't ask."

"This is a hologram, right?" Hermione checked, admiring the way the image had depth and the ability to have it's corners peered round. "And those three are Kenti, right?"

"Right and right. Anyway, to your second question; the whole deal with getting from here to there. I don't know all the math involved but there's several working forms of faster-than-light drive. I've got an old Deladarian garbage scow; she's a beat up old wreck but the enchantments on her core and systems are sound and she gets me from A to B even though she's a bit sluggish."

"The jimcracks make beautiful ships." Blaise remarked.

Harry snorted. "This one isn't. She was a patchwork mess with dry rot in the keel and so many holes in the cargo bay she was practically a flying colander. Only reason she had environmental integrity is because I know how to repair cracked powerstones." He turned back to Hermione. "Deladarian starships are essentially enchanted sailing ships. Most of them look like elegant yachts. My one looks like a junk made out of junk. It's not a coincidence her mast looks like a telegraph pole, it **is** a telegraph pole."

"Was a mess?" Fred checked.

Harry smirked.

"Let's just say I've done a lot of repair work on her." He said. "I know that doesn't tell you much. There's a reason for that; there are exactly fifteen people in this universe I trust and you are not one of them."

"Fair enough." Fred said with a shrug. "We've only known each other ten minutes."

"Jeez, I wish we could afford a starship, even an old junker." George muttered.

"Am I missing something?" Hermione asked.

"A starship capable of breaking the light barrier is worth more than the current GNP of Britain." Blaise told her. "Even if it's a barely-functional wreck, if it's capable of getting up to superluminal speed it's worth a very literal king's ransom. Harry's junked-up junk is probably worth a couple of hundred billion pounds."

"To put that in perspective for you, I cannot afford a starship yet." Artemis said with a wry smile.

Harry nodded as he once again rooted through the junk. Unearthing a coffin-sized metal case, he made a satisfied noise and hauled it out into the compartment. Heaving the 'coffin' open; he lifted it's contents out.

The only ones who didn't gasp at what it was were Hermione and Carla.

"This," Harry said, "Is a warp drive suitable for vessels between one hundred and one hundred thirty metres in overall length. It's a Telthair Aerospace Lithium Seal part, therefore from the highest-quality range of production starship components in the known universe. It's got a twenty-eight millimetre annealed phlebotinum core, precise at the quark level and capable of producing a warp field rated for two hundred and fifteen point two six seven light years per hour at an input wattage of six point four terawatts. Incidentally, this warp coil is worth at least two and a half quadrillion pounds."

"Holy SHIT! Where the Hell did you get that?!" pretty much everyone spluttered, or words to that effect.

"It was a gift from a friend as a thankyou for repeatedly saving his life." Harry explained once people had stopped talking over the top of each other.

"Wow." Fred murmured. "Those things have always-"

"-fascinated me." George finished. "What are those gubbins at the ends?"

Harry indicated the convoluted piece of machinery at the top end. "This is a STERAG damper. It's what stops the inertia from accelerating past the light barrier squishing you incredibly flat and paper thin. The black coil on top of it is a surge protector, and the grey box is the throttle rack. At the other end of the rod is the status monitoring pack, vibration compensators and heat sink. The warp coil itself is the thick black spring-like part; the extra coil around the outside of the warp coil is basically a big and very precise electromagnet, it helps damp any vibrations in the warp coil, and the black rod is the navigational shield projector. The thin orange and green collars at the top are the connector for the throttle cable; the fat green connector in the side of the throttle rack is for the mains positive feed, and the fat orange connector at the bottom is for the negative mains. The big yellow and blue cable and connectors are the earth line."

"You mean it's got onboard throttle control?" Blaise asked, shocked. "Won't that mess up the throttle response times?"

Harry shook his head. "It used an optical throttle cable, the throttle responds even faster than a conventional ring main throttle and there's less chance of a short in the throttle rack as compared to a full-power dashboard throttle resistor rack. This way they can fit that huge surge protector and that is how they manage to feed the coil so much power without burning it."

"Ladies and gentlebeings, welcome aboard this Savant Rail service for Mallaig Gatefield. This train will be calling at Peterborough, York, Newcastle Central, Edinburgh Waverly, Glasgow Queen Street, Fort William, Glenfinnan, and terminating at Mallaig Gatefield at 1935 hours this evening. Would anyone not intending to travel with us today please leave the train as we are about to depart. Thankyou." The PA said.

"In other words, as soon as the guard's got all the doors closed." The twins chorused, nodding meaningfully.

"How does that produce a warp field?" Hermione asked. "And what are the limiting factors?"

"OK. I'm not clued into all the figures here, so bear with me." Harry slowly began. "The bit I'm missing is how a dirty great phlebotinum spring produces a warp field. It's something to do with voltage across the coil producing a field effect analogous to an electromagnet. Think of a warp field as a ripple in the fabric of reality which the starship surfs on, it's not quite like that but that's the best description. Anyway, all warp coils are rated by two things. Firstly, there's the coil mass. That determines what size of warp field the coil is going to produce and therefore what size of ship it's suitable for. Secondly, there's the IPCC rating, that's input per cubic centimetre. That tells you how much power each cubic centimetre of coil can handle. The more juice you give it, the faster your warp field. Much the same as controlling the speed of a direct current electric motor. The big limiting factor is the fact that when there's power running through it a warp coil vibrates, and the higher the vibration frequency the more likely it is to crack or shatter. That's why the magnetic stiffeners and the big dampers, it makes the coil less likely to flex and crack. What happens if the coil cracks is it momentarily acts like a gigantic capacitor or Tesla coil. Then all hell breaks loose. A power surge running through the coil will make it vibrate at a much higher frequency, probably leading to a catastrophic failure. This coil's embedded in fifty millimetres of high-tensile steel. Traditional coils are mounted in at most ten mil of steel and are usually rigid mounted in the drive bay; this one is mounted on the dampers, which are essentially a set of shock absorbers. This way the coil can resonate without wearing it's mounting points or putting so much strain on itself. All that is why this coil can take so much power without wrecking itself; this baby's got an IPCC of seventeen gigawatts."

"Holy shit, that's drag racing territory!" the twins boggled.

Harry nodded.

"I know." He said.

"I say, I say, old chap, mind if I ask why in the galaxy haven't you fitted that _**beautiful**_ coil into a suitable vessel, eh what?" Fleggitt asked.

Harry snorted.

"It's rated for a hundred and twenty metre starship. My junk is a thirty metre starship which I didn't own when I was given the coil. I've had a chance at a couple of ships since, but I'm not putting this coil in anything short of a high-end blockade runner. Anything else would be a waste of a top-notch warp coil. As to why I keep it stowed in my portable hole, that hole goes everywhere with me and Carla is there to protect it."

Carla looked smug; Harry started stroking her hair.

"I keep all my most valuable possessions in that hole, along with the varied weapons and equipment that I need on a regular basis." He stowed the supersports warp coil back in it's case, stowed that in the portable hole, grabbed a trenchcoat and took the hole down; Carla folded it up and pocketed it. "That's why I bought a top-of-the-range killer doll to protect it."

Once again, everyone but Hermione looked seriously impressed. Carla basked in the attention.

"Uh, what does that mean?" Hermione asked. The locomotive blew it's whistle thus creating a punctuation.

Harry grinned at Carla. "Tell her, girl." He ordered.

"I am a precisely configured humanic product specially produced to fulfil certain functions." Carla said, demonstrating that she had a quiet, husky voice. "I am a mongrel clone with custom-designed DNA and a high-versitality combat skill pack. I am the bodyguard model of the MX-218 clone soldier." The guard selected that moment to blow his whistle; there was a creak, a distant hiss, and the train jerked and gently started to move with a distant but heartfelt CHUFF.

"Aha, here we go!" Fred said, rubbing his hands together.

"Tally ho, chaps!" Fleggitt agreed.

"Up up and away!" George agreed. Hermione, who had been carefully remembering which was which, finally noticed a difference between the two; George had a pinhead-sized scar on his right temple just above his eyebrow.

"How many models of MX-218 are there?" Hermione asked Carla, slightly freaked out at the idea of someone being 'a model of insert term'.

"There are five basic models of the MX. Type MX-218A; general purpose solider. Type MX-218B; assassin. Type MX-218C; humanic bomb. Type MX-218D; pilot. Type MX-218E; bodyguard. The MX-218E is the most advanced; while lacking the self-destruct feature of the B and C models, and the fibre optic nerve rigging of the D model, the MX-218E is fitted with a full set of military-specification nanocybernetic physical performance boosters, and fitted with a top-specification Sentek nanobrain with onboard ROM skillsofts for all conceivable combat, bodyguard, personal assistant and companion duties." Carla grinned, looking faintly like a pixie. "I'm quoting the user's manual there. I'm custom-configured, so I'm actually model MX-218F, but most of my equipment and software is on spec for model MX-218E."

"What differences are there between you and a standard MX-218E?" Artemis pointedly asked.

"I've got the MX-218D fibre optic nerves, and I have a personality and some level of free will." Carla told him. "Master specified that when he bought me."

"I've got no use for a mindless doll." Harry stated, resting a hand on her shoulder. "A standard MX-218 has as much imagination and flexibility as a toaster. They're over-specialised; their whole being is intent on specific ends by design, therefore they lack the intellect to properly judge a situation."

"I see." Hermione said.

"Hang on, gotta do something." Harry told her, fishing what looked like a not-set-off glowstick out of his pocket. He snapped it, firmly shook it, then examined it as most of it's length went blue.

"Cool, 95 takeup, that was a good batch." He said.

A chorus of squeals and swearing echoed from up front, accompanied by a peculiar noise.

Harry unleashed a massive guffaw as a tidal wave of skittering brown swept past the compartment windows.

"What the Hell was that?" Fred boggled.

Harry unleashed an even bigger guffaw, then started cackling.

"Harry?" George asked.

"That was twenty kilos of Instant Plague of Gerbils getting set off in the toilets at the head of the train." Harry gloated.

"It's a what?" Hermione blankly asked. Harry let out another cackle. The twins looked at each other and broke down in hysterical laughter.

Harry looked smug.

"What exactly," Hermione asked as Harry chucked the glowstick thingy out the window, "Is Instant Plague of Gerbils?"

"Enchanted powder." Harry said. "When you set it off, each granule turns into a live gerbil. It's a permanent change. There's around a thousand granules in a kilo. Of course, some of that doesn't go off. I poured a twenty kilo bag into the rubbish bin in the toilets at the head of the train. Then, when I cracked the bag's trigger, it turned into around twenty thousand very confused gerbils."

Fred and George were now laughing so hard they were rolling around on the floor making helpless little squeaking noises.

"I think you broke them, old boy." Fleggitt remarked in a sotto voice.

**End: Chapter 3.**

**Top Dog will return.**

General revision 18/ April /07, improvements to formatting.

Further general revision 25/April/07, more improvements to formatting.

AN – Sorry about the technobabble, it was an unfortunate necessity. Yes the speeds and distances in this fic are based on real-world astronomical data.


	4. Chapter 4

**This ain't no self-insert fic.**

**This ain't no slash fic neither.**

**This is Top Dog.**

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It's a long journey from London to the Highlands by train. Not as bad as it is in a car, but it's still at least eight hours cooling your ass in one place. Several games of cards broke out in the compartment, ending up with Harry and Artemis going head-to-head on a bluffing match that neither won while the twins attempted to chat Hermione up. Lunch was had near York as the train pounded through the English countryside, and Hermione discovered that Crunchy Frogs (a popular variety of snack food) are liable to hop away unless you keep an eye on them; the border vanished behind at about five in the afternoon. Shortly before Glenfinnan the PA instructed all Hogwarts students to be ready to leave the train and to please have all personal belongings with them when they left the train; Blaise got his pack and departed the compartment, claiming he had to get his wheel from the guard's van.

Harry, looking smug, put his laptop back in his portable hole, and started to get into his trenchcoat.

"At fucking last." He said. "My tailbone feels like someone hit me in the arse with a baseball bat."

"Bork bork." Fred told him

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**Disclaimer: One-wheeled motorcycles are neither safe nor sane. But they are definitely big and clever.**

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**Top Dog: Enter the Fnords**

**Book 1: Harry Johnson and the Headmaster's Socks.**

**A Doghead13 / United Galaxies fanfic**

**Written & produced by Calum J 'Doghead13' Wallace**

**Brought to you by Hairy Scottish Git Productions, GMBH**

**This is not a drill.**

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**Chapter 4: So We're Finally There.**

**(In which our crew arrive at the Collegium, and bikers occur)**

Exiting Glenfinnan railway station with the Luggage at her heels, Harry and Carla flanking her and the twins and Artemis behind her, several things caught Hermione's eye.

They were, to cut a long story short, bikers.

Many of them were quite distinctive bikers; although roughly half were getting aboard a variety of small bikes such as Honda CG125s, Vespa scooters and monkey bikes, there were a whole swarm of people getting onto (or rather into) things that looked like large wheels with the rider sat where the hub should be (one of which Blaise was wheeling) or bikes that hung suspended in thin air, or massive hulking things more like exceptionally ugly two-wheeled cruise missiles – even a couple of beat up old Harleys, and a machine that looked vaguely like a big dirtbike but had a single centrally-mounted wheel.

"What are those one-wheel-with-seat-in-middle things?" Hermione quietly asked. Harry chuckled.

"They're Fearchar Aoncuibheall monowheels, Amerai built." He said. "Two wheelers never really caught on in An Sleamhnaich. Then seventy-five Dachaigh Nuadh years ago, this guy called Fearchar Moireach took a 250cc 4-stroke methanol-burning lawn mower engine and stuck it into a frame inside the front wheel of a Frououshtequoo row-crop tractor. A few bits and bobs later, some parts to stop the thing gerbiling, and suddenly he had this product everyone wanted. Fearchar Motair build nearly fifty-seven thousand monowheels per year, mostly for the domestic market. Their top model has a 750cc engine kicking out a hundred and seventy-five brake horsepower, it's good for nearly a hundred and thirty miles per hour."

"That's even more mental than unimotorcyclists. At least they don't use their beasts on the road." Hermione muttered, then briefly shook her head. She turned her attention to the Luggage.

"I'd like my bike." She told it. It gave her a wooden look for a moment, then disgorged her Norton, which she proudly hefted down from the frame Jim Bollock and Crazy Stan had assembled to support it.

Harry admired it for a moment.

"A Norton Commando, it's a while since I saw one of those." He said. "I guess your father's _the_ Granger, as in Jeff Granger, the chop builder?"

Hermione nodded.

"That's him." She said. "Hey, you're a biker, then?"

Harry raised a finger and smirked; he fiddled with his watch for a moment, rotating the bezel to a specific place then pressing a stud. There was a hiss and click, and a three-dimensional wireframe image of some sort of gigantic hulking motorcycle appeared in front of him; in a matter of a couple of split seconds the image filled in, becoming a very real and very solid gloss-black motorcycle; the suspension creaked as the massive weight of the machine settled on it. It looked like the hybrid offspring of a cruise missile, a predatory animal, and a Harley.

"Nice." Hermione said, somewhat overawed.

"She's a Fenrir-specification Corley Motors VX-21 Steel Wolf. There were only five others like her built, and only two of them are still in one piece." Harry bragged. A phalanx of monowheelers kickstarted their machines, as did the guy with the old wartime Harley.

Harry smirked, swung aboard, and kicked the starter.

The bike came to life with a roar and a blast of flame from it's gold adonised gunbarrel-like exhausts.

"Holy SHIT, is that what it looks like?" Someone yelled over the earth-shaking roar from the Fenrir; Harry and Hermione looked round, and found a small, skinny Asian-looking teenage boy dressed in blue leathers and wheeling a beat-up Suzuki GSXR750 towards them.

Harry nodded.

"She sure is!" he shouted back.

"God, she's a work of art!" the boy shouted.

"Sure is." Harry shouted back, then silenced everyone by blipping the Fenrir's throttle. The howl lifted dust from the tarmac; another blast of fire lept from the massive exhausts. The boy with the Gixer developed a silly grin and started yelling random gleeful noises.

Harry grinned; Carla climbed onto the cramped pillion seat, and wrapped her arms round him as he blipped the throttle again.

"Catch you at the Collegium!" he shouted, and threw the monster into gear. The other boy flung himself aboard his Gixer with a yelp, jamming his thumb against the starter as his ass hit the seat; Hermione swung onto her Norton and gave the kickstart a gentle boot, bringing forth that timeless throb of an old British traverse twin.

Seeing that the other two were ready, Harry grinned like a maniac and launched his ICBM of a bike, leaving the GSXR and the old Norton scrambling to keep up, as did a veritable fleet of monowheels.

Over by the station entrance, Fleggitt saw what was going on, yapped, triggered his own watch, madly scrambled into the eight-wheeled car that appeared as a result, and proceeded to do an enormous rolling burnout after the three bikes. Several other students did exactly the same thing.

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Harry was enjoying himself. Ever since he'd been given his Fenrir (talk about helluva way to show gratitude!) he'd been mad about riding the machine. Built on contract by New Australia's Corley Motors for the Champion of the Atlantean Empire, Cloud Squall himself, and derived from Corley's VX-21 Steel Wolf superbike design, the Fenrir was the highest performance production motorcycle ever built. Harry knew how lucky he was to own one; after all, only six had ever been built. The model was still on Corley's custom orders book (along with classics such as the old Twin Titan) but it cost more than an emperor's ransom due to the amount of state-of-the-art military tech jammed into it's armoured hide, so to cut a long story short none of the people who'd want one could afford one.

He became aware of a jet-like scream; he glanced at the rear view screen, and found himself confronted with a rapidly-approaching blood-red supercar he thought he recognised.

"Early Fliggitprob." He muttered. He'd been hanging around to let the Earther bikes keep up, but being overtaken by a fifteen thousand year old Frognorfian sports car would be just plain insulting.

So he opened the Fenrir's throttle to the endstop.

Just behind and to the left of him, Hermione went a bit bugeyed as the huge bike emitted an earthshaking BANG, spat fire and shot off like a very large black and chrome bullet.

Hermione very prudently decided to get the Hell out the way as the formerly orderly procession of vehicles from railway station to Collegium transformed itself into a chaotic impromptu Cannonball Run.

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It was odd, Hermione mused, that she drew so much attention. Most of the other students with bikes or cars had swarmed into the place before her; she was arriving just in front of the busses full of people who didn't have their own wheels (and Artemis's limo) which oddly enough meant that people's attention was directed her way.

As she pulled up between Harry's Fenrir and Blaise's monowheel, several people – many of them older or wearing backpatches – came over for a look at her bike. There were advantages to riding a machine that had been on the cover of Back Street Heroes.

The Norton had at one stage been her father's bike; when he built his current chop (Swamp Thing) he'd given the Norton to his daughter, mostly because he couldn't bear to sell the Norton – the two of them had been too far together – but he couldn't bear to see it rot in a shed.

She killed the engine; the timeless Brit-bike chug settled away as she pulled her helmet off.

"Kin'ell, what a beaut!" one of the admirers – a brawny young man about her own age with blazing red hair and beat-up clothing who'd baled out of a bus and came sprinting over to have a look – said, crouching down to get a better look at the airbrushed painting of triple Celtic knotwork dragons on the fuel tank. "My dad used to ride a Commando, but it didn't look half as good as this!" He had a Liverpool accent as intense as the twins.

"My dad built him." Hermione said. "I'm Hermione Granger, my dad's Jeff Granger, the chop builder. And yes my bike **is** Dragonheart, and yes he **is** a Back Street Heroes cover bike from three years ago."

"What a beaut!" the redhead enthused. "I'm Ron Weasely, pleased to meetcha. I love old British bikes, my dad is gonna give me his Commando once I pass my test."

"Are you related to Gred and Forge Weasely?" Harry asked.

Ron rolled his eyes. "They've been doing the name thing again? Yeah, they're me annoying big brothers. It's funny, really – it's supposed to be a little brother's job to be the annoying one. They make me feel redundant."

Harry chuckled. "I'm Harold Johnson, pleased to meet ya. Hey, and call me Harry, huh? Harold makes me sound like an Eton fuckhead."

"Good to-" Ron started, but broke off as he turned round and saw what Harry was sitting upon. "Holy SHIT! Is that what it looks like?"

Once again, the Fenrir took centre stage.

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"Hey, what's that noise?" Hermione asked. They'd been rejoined by Artemis, Fred and George; they were still hanging around the bikes. Course registration wasn't until Monday (today being Friday) and all that was left tonight was getting distributed between dormitories and dinner, and probably a lot of booze-related things, this being a college after all.

The noise Hermione was referencing was a distant rumble. It sounded a bit like a far-off jet aircraft.

"Sounds like a ship." Ron said, cocking his head.

"Yeah, fusion turbines." Harry mused, shutting his eyes for a moment. "I'm not sure what model… it sounds a bit like a Sulare heavy tug."

As he was speaking, the rumble grew to a roar.

"But not quite right." He said. "There should be more spaceframe harmonics."

The roar grew to a howl, and a massive steel-grey shape came slamming over the horizon, bringing a deep-toned scream that shook the ground and vibrated fillings out of teeth. The source of this noise looked a bit like a hybrid of a military transport aircraft and a fighter, only about four hundred feet long and studded with weapon-festooned turrets and jam-packed missile rails; the whole thing was a filthy shade of rust and dirt over matte grey paint, with the words BLINK DOG formed from ten foot tall cleaned sections along the sides.

Four massive fireballs erupted from the bellypan as it came to a halt in midair; these belches of flame were heralded by a differing-toned roar. A moment later, multiple blasts of blue fire leapt from the sides of the tail with a deep, percussive BANG; with that out the way, the aircraft deposited itself onto the sea of tarmac that extended out from the car park below the castle. The groan of springs was easily audible over the scream from the engines that were lowering the ship; a few moments later, more fireballs burst forth with another shattering BLAM.

"Interesting." Harry said as the howl faded. "She's a DX-32."

"What the fuck is that?" Hermione asked, seriously impressed by the dirty monster that was now looming over the bottom of the car park.

"The Mentler D-frame is the galaxy's second commonest model of starship; the DX is the heavy dropship version." Harry told her. "Only the Nergok Fnood number 7 frame outdoes the D-frame. The DX-32 is considered the galaxy's finest hot-rod frame, and those beauties are rare; out of two hundred and fifty-seven thousand five hundred and sixteen produced, less than a thousand are still operational. You can tell the different models apart from the profile of the cockpit and tailfins; the '32 has stubby tailfins and a more bulbulous cockpit. All models of DX are heavy-duty tank transport dropships designed to shift a tank talon from deep space to surface in as little time as possible then act as field headquarters and fire support for the armoured unit, though in the Saotome Clanguard they are used to transport all types of surface-operation talon except from mech talons. The DX-32 is regarded as the ultimate classic."

"That's a starship?" Hermione asked. "I thought starships looked more like, I dunno, a tangle of tubes and girders and stuff?"

"Well, they need aerodynamics and heat shields if they're re-entry capable." Harry pointed out. "Being re-entry capable is part of the D-frame's design spec."

"LSS-17332 Blink Dog." Artemis said, lowering his field glasses. "Ring any bells?"

Harry, Blaise and the Weaselys all nodded.

"The LSS-17332 Blink Dog is the third greatest asteroid racer ever built." Fred told Artemis, sounding reproachful. "Funny – I thought she'd been scrapped years back."

"She was." Harry said. "Some fuckwit brought her down hard enough to distort her spine. Her drives were stripped out and she was left in the Dachaigh Nuadh boneyards… fucking shame. Thirty-five years ago she was bought for bugger all by a New Aussie who apparently had a warp drive on him. These days she's registered as a cargo vessel, but if you ask after top-notch blockade runners you're likely to get pointed towards the Blink Dog."

There was a juddering CRUNCH, and the Dog's nose ramp started to lower itself with a yowl of tortured hydraulics and corroded hinges; once it hit ground, a large and incredibly rusty pickup truck made it's way down.

"If she's a DX-32, someone's dropped the suspension." Blaise said. "She's lower than a DX-34."

Harry snorted.

"Dude, she's a hot-rod. Of course she's got lowered suspension. That's a bit like asking if a Kenti landwarrior knows how to shoot a grav rifle."

The rusty crewcab came rolling past, giving Hermione a closer look; it looked like a 1950's Caddilac reinvented as a double-cab pickup and given a thick jacket of jury-rigged repairs. It had tailfins, six square acres of chrome and a missing headlight. The front passenger door was a hole blocked by a couple of sheets of welded-on corrugated iron. The back axle was visibly bent. The tailgate was held closed by baler twine. The rear window was completely absent. The whole thing looked like it had just been dug up.

"Ye gods." Hermione said as the filth-coated monster came to a creaking rest just at the end of the line of bikes, jetcycles and monowheels. It had dropped what looked like a section of axle on it's way.

"Typical Holden Brigand Colonist." Harry told her.

"I don't think I want to know." Hermione remarked, dusting the back of her bike in case the monster's decay had infected it.

"The Holden Brigand," Harry continued, "Is the most famous New Australian pickup truck. It was in production between 1841 and 1856. The Colonist is the colonial model, so propelled by DC electric motors on the wheelhubs. Most Brigand Colonists are rust-buckets that haven't seen five minutes maintenance since the day they left the factory, and that thing looks to be a case in point."

"Don't knock the Beast, mate." The rusty monster's driver said, proving herself to be both Australian and female as she climbed out (it was hard to tell about the gender, but nothing male and human has a contralto voice) and gave her vehicle an affectionate slap on the bonnet, causing it to drop a shower of rust flakes. "She's a good old ute, mate." She was about five feet short, ginger, flat-chested and as plain as a slice of Hovis Brown; the only way to identify her gender was her voice and the fact she lacked a beard. She was dressed in a scruffy blue boiler suit, hiking boots and a battered Aussie bush hat.

"My description of the degree of wear and tear your vehicle has taken was not a criticism." Harry told her. "It was me being admiring, any vehicle still running while being that beat up would be impressive."

"I have to bash the Beast's powerpack with a lump hammer every time we're gonna use it, mate." A bearded version of the driver said, getting out of the passenger side through the hole that had once held a window; he had a resonant baritone voice and was wearing an ancient Merchant Navy captain's hat in addition to his boiler suit and boots. "Gudday, mate. Name's Bruce Walker, and that's me twin sister,"

"Alice Walker, mate." The driver said. "Gudday."

"So what am I, sliced ham?" a pleasant tenor voice asked as the beat-up ute's offside rear door swung open.

Hermione blinked, sincerely nonplussed, as she saw the owner of this voice.

For a start, and despite the tenor voice, this was a female person. She was obviously a Kenti – she shared the catlike face, digitigrade legs and bony wing-like things from Harry's photo of his mates. Her fur was jet black, she had a wry smile on her face, her eyes glittered green, and she was dressed in a pink crop-top, little black corset, digitigrade combat boots and ultra-short urban camouflage shorts. She was also about seven foot tall and extremely athletic; the scars that studded the backs of her knuckles marked her as a fighter, as did the sizeable handgun she had on her belt.

"Nope Nav, you're Tarai Riata T'rash'gal." Bruce told her. "You forgot your name or something? If you don't watch out you'll make a bloke worry about the environmental integrity of your brain, sheila."

"Bite me, Chief." Tarai snapped, giving him the finger. "Hey, and you guys? Call me Tara."

"Strewth, Nav." Alice grumbled. "No need to bite Bruce's head off."

"Why? It's not like he uses it."

"But he'd look kinda fucked up without one."

"True."

"So, you wanna introduce yourselves, peeps?" Bruce asked.

"I'll go one better than that." Harry said. "I'm Harry Johnson, that's Hermione Granger, this is my familiar Carla, that's Blaise Zabini, that's Ron Weasely, that's Fred Weasely, that's George Weasely, and here comes Artemis Fowl."

"Gudday." The three Blink Dog crewmembers chorused. Another rumble-roar-howl announced another starship arriving; this one was about the size and shape of an overgrown two-seater sports car.

"Crikey mate, that's an ADX-28 Titan!" Alice said.

"Which means?" Hermione asked.

"You don't know much, do you sheila? A sled is the starship equivalent of a Ferrari two-seater, right? Well, the ADX-28 is made for blokes who're too big to fit in any other sled."

The massive sled's cockpit hissed open, and out stepped a giant. Tara took one look at him and nearly fainted.

The weapon-festooned figure was obviously a Kenti; he had the cat-like face, the cat-like legs, the cat-like tail and the bony insectile wing things.

He was also nine and a half feet of surly-looking iron-hard muscle covered in wiry sand-brown fur, and was carrying enough firepower to start World Wars 3, 4 and 5 at the one go.

"Holy _shit_ he's **huge**." Hermione whispered.

Harry's face split into a massive grin.

"ELA JAHI!" He shouted.

"SHIONRA!" the giant catman bellowed, spinning round; his voice was so deep it was like a diesel truck engine.

Hermione recognised him as soon as he turned round. He was the sandy-furred titan who was apparently Harry's best friend.

"S'tarak'hai R'hara'tath, as I live and breathe!" Harry continued, dashing over and proceeding to exuberantly pound on the catman's hulking shoulder. "Take a look at you, man! Every time I think I got out…"

"Good to see you, Johnson." S'tarak'hai replied, his broad grin showing a lot of razor-sharp dentistry; he slapped Harry on the back. "How're you doing, tough guy?"

"Pretty fucking good." Harry told him with a casual one-shouldered shrug; big man and giant catman started sauntering towards the people who'd been sharing Harry's compartment.

"Zarie sends her love." S'tarak'hai remarked, keeping a straight face. Harry rolled his eyes. "The squad's their usual selves, all gun and no brain. So, you wanna tell me how you got your hands on a CX21 Fenrir?"

"Aw, the bike's Cloud's way of saying thanks for what I did for his boss."

S'tarak'hai let out a low chuckle.

"You sure get around, Johnson."

"You know me, man. Frognorf today, the Imperial Throne tomorrow, Kendarat next week and Dachaigh Nuadh the week after that. Wherever there's people willing to pay by the ass kicked, I'm there."

"True." At that stage, S'tarak'hai noticed Tara, who was trying (and failing) to hide behind her crewmates. "Tarai. It's been a long time."

"Uh… hi, S'tarak'hai." Tara said, sounding freaked out. "You've grown."

"Time does that, as does cybernetics." S'tarak'hai said. "We need to talk."

"I guess." Tara whispered, staring at her feet.

"Now see here mate!" Bruce snapped, a hand on his gun. "I dunno where you get off coming over here and threatening my navigator, but-"

"It's cool, Chief." Tara snapped, glaring at him.

Bruce looked utterly confused. S'tarak'hai glared at him.

"Threaten Tarai?" he asked. "I'd do that as soon as you'd shoot your twin."

And, with that, the massive catman stormed off.

"That," Alice said, "Didn't go well. Who's that bloke, Nav? Your ex?"

Tara glared at her.

"That's S'tarak'hai R'hara'tath." Harry remarked. "Kendarat's finest. He's the son of High Alpha K'tarag'jal R'hara'tath, and I hear rumours he's K'tarag'jal's heir. I definitely know he's one of the First Legion's best squad leaders."

"Which means?" Hermione asked.

Harry sighed.

"The First Legion is the Kenti equivalent of 22 Special Air Service. K'tarag'jal R'hara'tath is the personal bodyguard of Queen Rialia the Twelfth, the current ruling queen of the Thousand Kingdoms. And in case you were wondering, Talon Alpha First Class S'tarak'hai R'hara'tath is the finest sentient being I have ever met, and one of the vanishingly few people I trust."

"I don't blame you." Tara said in a soft voice, still staring at her feet.

"This is starting to disturb me, Nav." Bruce said. "Look, I ain't gonna press, but if you want to talk, you know where to find me and you know where to find Alice, right? And you know we'll keep things to ourselves."

"Thanks, Chief." Tara said. "I just… I don't think I'm ready to talk to anyone about this."

Alice rested a hand on her shoulder.

"We're the Blink Doggers and you're one of us, Nav. We're right by you, no worries. Don't ever forget that."

"Thanks, Skipper."

"No worries."

"That bloke didn't do anything bad to you, did he?" Bruce checked, once again fingering his gun.

"It's not like that, Chief." Tara assured.

Bruce nodded, his look distant.

"Good."

**End chapter.**

General revision 18/ April /07, improvements to formatting.

Further general revision 25/April/07, more improvements to formatting.

Usual chances of response to flames apply.

AUTHOR'S NOTES

Glenfinnan is the station on the West Highland Line that was used in the Harry Potter movies.

Corley Motors comes from the old LucasArts adventure game 'Full Throttle'. I needed a motorcycle manufacturer that doesn't exist on real-world Earth, and they were the first one out the References Hat.

TRANSLATIONS

Aoncuibheall : One-wheel

An Sleamhnaich : The Skid

Dachaigh Nuadh : New Home

'Ela Jahi' times 'Shionra!' translates roughly as 'First Legion' times 'Ooh-rah!'

Links for monowheels, unimotorcycles, the Norton Commando and Harry's bike posted to link thread on Top Dog forums, see my profile.

**OMAKE OMAKE OMAKE OMAKE OMAKE OMAKE FNORD**

Voldemort was dead.

He was indeed an ex-Dark Lord.

He was pushing up daisies.

He had gone to a worse place.

This did of course leave his unfortunate executioner to confront a much more feared entity; the press.

"How did you kill You-Know-Who, Mr Potter?" Rita Skeeter squalled.

"With an AK." Harry said.

There was a frozen silence.

"An AK?"

"An AK."

"You… used an Unforgivable?"

"That's not what I said. I said I used an AK."

"But that's the Killing Curse!" Someone complained.

Harry looked annoyed and pulled an automatic rifle out of under the table.

"No it's not." he said. "I shot Voldemort in the face with this; it's a Kalashnikov AK47. Mr Blood Supremacist Moron didn't do anything to defend himself against little bits of lead travelling faster than the speed of sound."

(AN: I find referring to the Av Kav as 'AK' comical, because in my mind an AK comes with Kalashnikov markings. Whenever someone's described as 'hit with an AK' in Potter fics, I have visions of Soviet rifles…)


	5. Chapter 5

**This ain't no self-insert fic.**

**This ain't no slash fic neither.**

**This is Top Dog.**

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Hermione was aware that Harry was keeping half an eye on her as the first years students were called aside by the biggest guy she'd ever seen (even bigger than S'tarak'hai, and nearly as hairy) and led round the side of the castle to a postern door, which they were then led through, finding themselves on a long flight of underground stairs. It started to get on her nerves as she climbed said stairs, but fortunately Harry noticed a very pretty red-haired elf-girl and changed keep-an-eye-on targets.

At the top of these stairs was a heavy door; the huge man pounded against it three times, whereupon it swung back with an almighty creak.

There was a large square room the other side; a tall, severe-looking grey-haired woman dressed in a somewhat old-fashioned black dress (complete with black lace edging) and large bulky black boots was waiting for them. Hermione realised with a start she recognised this old woman.

"The first years, Professor McGonagall." The huge man said.

"Thankyou, Mr MacDuff." McGonagall replied, and turned her attention to the swarm of students.

"In a moment, you will join your fellow students." She told them. "But first you must be sorted into your correct houses."

"Woot." Harry quietly remarked as she went on to explain the basics of the House Cup contest. "The melodrama is starting to get on my tits."

"You don't have tits." Alice pointed out.

"Neither do you, sis." Bruce told her, receiving a stuck-out tongue and a raised finger for his pains.

"Okay, it's starting to piss me off." Harry said.

"That's better."

MacDuff and McGonagall departed through the door at the side of the room, and the students were briefly on their own.

"My brothers say you've got to wrestle an enormous troll." A Liverpudlian voice remarked. "But then, they're Fred and George, bullshit is their fave hobby."

"I heard it was like an assault course or something." Someone else remarked.

Harry snorted hugely.

"What a complete pile of shit." He muttered.

At this point, several ghosts wandered through the wall. Cue screaming and melodrama, and Harry making several loud disgusted remarks about the maturity level in here, complete with multiple repeats of the words 'For fuck sake, it's just dead people, haven't you punks ever seen one of those before?'

Then McGonagall returned, the ghosts having departed, and led the swarm through the door at the end of the room, having them leave their luggage behind. The Luggage didn't like this, but stayed when Hermione told it.

The room beyond was impressive to say the least; it was about the size of an aircraft hanger or really huge concert hall, and around six stories tall. At one end was a raised dias that (from the massive public address system) obviously doubled as a stage; at the other end, two flights of stairs curled down from the third-floor level and another pair vanished into the floor, the four flights serving to frame an open fireplace big enough for your average Guy Fawkes Night bonfire. The ceiling was liberally sprinkled with chandeliers; holographic portraits lined the walls, and four massive long tables took up most of the room.

At these tables were seated the older students. There were hundreds of them; Hermione reckoned only about two thirds had got off the train. Presumably some had driven up, and (equally presumably) the Walkers and S'tarak'hai weren't the only ones who'd flown in.

"See the green-haired beauty up the end?" Harry remarked. Hermione looked in the direction he was pointing; the fifth table, crosswise on the stage. The staff table, it seemed. It took her a moment to spot the woman Harry was talking about.

Right enough, she was a classical beauty; perfect features, pale skin, dark eyes and long luxurious hair. Her clothes were rather odd for such a lovely creature; a scruffy white tank-top, a black choker with a flash of bright metal at the throat and, visible below the table, denim jeans and combat boots; her right arm was clad in a bright chrome shoulder glove.

"Yeah." Hermione said.

"My eldest daughter." Harry told her, and Hermione believed him; only a father would sound quite that proud.

"She's gotta be way older than you, mate." Bruce said. Harry snorted.

"I hang out with the Chaos family." He said, as if that explained everything.

"Ah." Apparently it did if you were Bruce.

"Crikey mate, you really get around." Alice remarked.

Harry just smirked.

McGonagall walked out a side door, apparently satisfied with the brief conversation she'd had with the long-bearded elderly man at the centre of the staff table. A few moments later she was back, bearing an extremely battered pointy hat and what appeared to be a pub stool.

She set the hat on the stool and stood back; the hat burst into song, it's voice coming from a tear near it's brim.

Hermione stood there and wondered if she was the only one this all struck as completely ludicrous. From the way Harry was shaking his head and the patronising expression on S'tarak'hai's face, she wasn't.

Once the hat had finished it's song (which Hermione felt got way more applause than it deserved) McGonagall addressed the first-years once more.

"In a moment I will begin to call out a list of names." McGonagall said. "When your name is called out, come forward and you will be Sorted."

She gave a moment for that to sink in, then snapped her fingers; a glowing list of names appeared in the air in front of her.

"Aardman, Andrew."

A jug-eared guy with zits on the back of his neck went forwards. The hat was plunked on his head, and a moment later it yelled, "HUFFLEPUFF!" at the top of it's non-existent lungs.

"This is gonna be a real drag." Harry muttered.

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**Disclaimer: I originally wrote the entire student list, and littered it with references and in-jokes. But it was incredibly boring to read.**

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**Top Dog: Enter the Fnords**

**Book 1: Harry Johnson and the Headmaster's Socks.**

**A Doghead13 / United Galaxies fanfic**

**Written & produced by Calum J 'Doghead13' Wallace**

**Brought to you by Hairy Scottish Git Productions, GMBH**

**This is not a drill.**

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**Chapter 5: The Obligatory Sorting Scene.**

**(In which our crew are sorted into their proper houses, blah blah)**

Artemis was the first among the group of them to be sorted; the hat yelled "SLYTHERIN!" after a split-second upon his skull. Six others passed, and then…

"Granger, Hermione."

Hermione cautiously approached the stool. The hat was plopped on her head.

Then a voice was speaking in her mind.

**Hmm, quite an orderly mind you have here, a little flustered… my, you're a powerful one, smart too… hmm, but no…**

"GRYFFINDOR!" it roared. Hermione headed for the table from which polite applause was now coming.

Twelve more people, and "Johnson, Harold" was called.

The hat was popped upon Harry's head, and…

Silence.

After nearly a minute had passed, people started paying attention.

Thus, the whole room caught the deranged grin that spread itself across Harry's face.

"GRYFFINDOR!" the hat bellowed, stifling a guffaw.

Harry smirked and stood up.

"Thanks, Donald." He said, and swaggered over to the Gryffindor table.

"No worries!" the hat shouted after him. "Well hurry up then! We haven't got all millennium! Roll up, roll up!"

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S'tarak'hai was sorted next from the group Hermione knew, going into Slytherin, then Tara joined Hermione and Harry at the Gryffindor table, followed by Ron, Bruce and Alice, and finally Blaise went to Slytherin, having the deep misfortune to be the last to be sorted. The whole process had taken nearly an hour, so everyone was a bit pissy as the elderly gentleman with the impressive beard banged a fork on his plate to attract their attention. This failed to attract their attention, so he loudly cleared his throat; this likewise failed, so he took a huge slug from his tankard, picked up a microphone and belched very hard into it. The resulting noise got people's attention all right.

"Welcome," his voice boomed from the PA, "To another year at our fine Collegium! For those of you who don't know my name's Albus Dumbledore, and I have a few announcements, but I don't know about you but I'm ravenously hungry, so all that can wait until we've eaten!"

"Is this guy for real?" Harry muttered, glancing at the nearest person, who happened to be Bruce, who shrugged.

"For now, I'll just say a few words. And they are; armadillo, tangent, nitrogen and flutter! Dig in!" Dumbledore declared.

"What a fucking loony." Harry muttered, and then got distracted by the enormous quantities of food that arose on the table in pillars of blue light.

"Man's a nutter, alright." Fred remarked, helping himself to mashed potatoes.

"Good sort of nutter though." George added, spooning peas onto his plate and unearthing a peashooter.

Fleggitt smirked and unearthed a Nerf gun as he casually loaded any food within arms reach onto his plate. Hermione briefly wondered what the poodle-man was doing at the Gryffindor table; hadn't he said something about being a Slytherin?

"Funny." Harry said, doubtfully examining the badly-prepared old-school English food. "I'd heard this place had a Frognorfian chef."

"Oh, it does." Fred said. "This lot is here for the food fight, they know we're going to waste the first table-full anyway."

With that said, he produced a miniature trebuchet and started launching large spoonfuls of mashed potato in the general direction of the staff table.

"FOOD FIGHT!" someone with an Australian accent yelled; a large tureen full of tomato soup went flying up and landed upside down right in front of Dumbledore as George stood up and hailed the Slytherins with peas. Dumbledore smiled, bobbed his head, and poured a jug of gravy down the back of the startled soup-splattered Quirrel's neck.

Then all Hell broke loose.

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"Oh. My. God." Hermione said. "Oh. My. God, Oh. My. God!" She'd been repeating that disjointed refrain ever since a large saucepan of spaghetti bolognese got upended over her head.

"What a fucking **mess**!" Harry crowed, all smug about how he'd managed to dodge every bit of food that tried to hit him. Expensive guns, after all.

"Well, that was fun, wasn't it?" Dumbledore PA'ed, then cast a complex cleaning spell that put paid to the immense mess.

A replacement set of food arose; this set was sincerely higher-quality, and apart from the occasional lobbed roll everyone got stuck into eating.

"What was that you called the Sorting Hat?" Fred asked, loading his new plate with delicate pasties.

"Donald." Harry said. "It's his name, I thought it might be attached to him. Well, actually, his full name's Donald Temporary Moose the Incredible Self-Aware Telepathic Talking Hat, and when I told him it was a weird name he asked me what sort of name I thought a talking hat enchanted by a martial arts weirdo with a warped sense of humour would have."

The only thing Fred could think of to say in reply to that was 'Oh.'

So he did.

"Oh."

"How come you were talking to the- to Donald for so long?" Hermione asked.

"Well, we were discussing which house I'd be best off in and he was getting miffed that I thought it was a formality." Harry said with a shrug.

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Chirpy was a house elf. Being one of the Hogwarts house elves, Chirpy was a very happy house elf.

A busy house elf who nobody beats on is a happy house elf, and around Hogwarts there was always something to do and it was against the school rules to beat on the house elves.

This evening, what Chirpy had to do was transferring the students luggage to the requisite rooms in the requisite dorms. She'd checked past the headmaster's office and got the list of whose stuff went where, and now she was to get the student's things to the correct dorms.

She had just reached the third compartment in the first carriage when she ran into the first of this year's problems. Students often did weird things to their luggage that meant it bit or electrified people who messed with it, and they didn't often make it so a house elf could move it without getting got.

However, to her knowledge, she had never before had a trunk get up on hundreds of tiny legs and back off growling at her.

"Chirpy is not threat, Mr Trunk." She tried. "Chirpy just needs to move you to Miss Grangy's room."

The Luggage gave her a doubtful look.

After five tries (and it trying to eat her) she worriedly teleported back to the castle to let Albus Dumbledore know there was a problem she couldn't resolve.

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Dumbledore unleashed the Belch O' Doom. Everyone paid attention.

"Ahem. Would Miss Hermione Granger please go to the cloakroom? There is a problem transferring her luggage to the Gryffindor dorms. That's it, everyone. Carry on eating."

"Oh **god**!" Hermione croaked, jumping to her feet. "Someone messed with the Luggage! It probably ate them!"

She ran for the door.

"Waitaminute, the Luggage? She doesn't mean **the** Luggage?" a boy just down the way from Fred checked. With a bit of thought, Harry remembered his name was Dean Thomas.

Harry nodded.

Dean went a bit pale.

"Ye Gods!"

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Hermione was met by a wave of mindfucked silence as she re-entered the Great Hall with the Luggage occasionally stepping on her heels.

"What in the **galaxy**," Draco Malfoy's strident voice asked, "Is _that_?"

"Gaw, he calls himself a rich bloke and he doesn't even recognise a Pratchett-McMulder trunk." Fred deadpanned.

"It's a carnivorous trunk, mate." A loud male Aussie voice loudly replied. "It's called the Luggage, it's the galaxy's foulest-tempered travel accessory. I figure it even out-bad tempers Sev."

"My name is Severus, Mr Chaos." someone barked from the staff table.

"And my name's Ben, Sev mate."

"Gudday Luggage mate." Alice greeted as the Luggage settled itself beside Hermione's seat as she re-seated herself.

"So, did it eat anyone?" Dean asked.

"I don't _think_ so." Hermione replied, as uncertain as she sounded.

"That's one cool trunk." another girl who a bit of thought placed as Parvati Patil asked, peering at the Luggage, which sat there looking remarkably like a trunk. "How much did it cost?"

"It didn't cost me anything; my loony uncle Stan gave me it." Hermione said, and frowned. "I dunno where he got it; I think Jim Bollock made it. It's the sort of thing Jim Bollock would do."

"Jim Bollock? What kind of name is that?" the girl sat the far side of Parvati asked; thinking back, Hermione remembered this girl was called Lavender Brown.

"The kind of name you'd find attached to an ex-SAS biker hippy who changed their name according to a peyote trip." Hermione said. "Jim Bollock's one of the Hell's Hippies. What's that expression for?" This last was directed at Dean.

"Uncle Stan? Your uncle's **Crazy Stan**, right? As in the guy who runs the _**Hell's Hippies**_? Ye Gods!" Dean boggled. "My dad's in the Midnight Riders, and he says the Hell's Hippies are the most dangerous club in Britain!"

"What are you two talking about?" Parvati asked.

"I dunno." Lavender said. "But the Hell's Hippies and the Midnight Riders are both biker gangs."

"They're motorcycle clubs." Hermione and Dean chorused.

"Crumbs, quite an echo in here." Harry remarked.

"My dad's an officer in the Supernatural Investigation Department." Lavender continued. "And he says the Hell's Hippies are all werewolves, and the Midnight Riders leader is a vampire. Dad tends to rant when he gets home."

Harry stood up. "OI BEN! MICHELLE! OVER HERE!" he roared in the general direction of the Slytherin table.

"Gudday Harry mate!" the someone who'd told Draco what the Luggage was roared back.

A moment later, a pink blur came zooming over like a stoned bumble-bee and jumped on Harry. Fred and George slapped on sunglasses in perfect sync as it arrived.

"Hi, Harry!" it said in an appallingly strong Aussie accent.

Now it wasn't rocketing around like a misguided missile, Hermione could see what it was; a catgirl. She looked a bit like a Kenti (complete with the wings) but was about five feet tall and had only the faintest dusting of almost-transparent fur over deeply suntanned skin.

She was also dressed almost entirely in pink. This pink wasn't just your mundane pink; it was _**P-I-N-K**_, that sort of luminous pink that you really need eye protection to look at. A pink boob-tube that left almost nothing to the imagination. An intricate pink choker. Pink wristbands. Skin-tight pink trousers with cutaways showing wide expanses of suntanned skin. Even her hair and the fur on her tail were dyed that same shade of eye-blasting pink; the only other-colour things on her person were a tight little black corset, her boots, the pair of flying goggles she was using as an Alice band, plentiful silver jewellery (both the bracelet / ring type and the body piercing type, including through her wings and tail) and her incredible leaf-green eyes.

"Heya, Michelle." Harry said, picking her up; his long hands went right round her corseted middle. "How's you?"

"No worries!" she chirped, winking saucily at him. It was almost painfully obvious she had a crush of truly epic proportions on him.

"Stop manhandling me sister mate, you don't know where she's been." Said a tall, thoroughly lanky guy with a bushy deep-brown beard and matching scruffy hair.

"Big meanie!" Michelle complained.

"Hey, Ben." The Weasely twins chorused.

Unlike Michelle, Ben looked perfectly human; the only odd things about him were his height (well over six foot) his lankiness and the immensely deep suntan on his skin. He was even dressed pretty normal; denim jeans, a black leather belt, a navy blue T-shirt marked 'FBI: Fast Bad Insane' in yellow, and Doc Martens; the only odd touches were the metal-bodied flashlight clipped to his belt and the military-style dogtags.

"Good to see you, Ben." Harry said, setting Michelle back on her feet. "Take a seat, big man."

"Don't mind if I do. Good to see you too mate, it's been too fucking long." Ben said, settling himself on the bench beside Harry; Michelle immediately jumped into the gap between them and wrapped herself round Harry's arm.

"Yeah, way too long!" she said.

"Strewth, sis." Ben said. "The poor bloke's gonna need that arm."

"Big meanie." Michelle repeated, letting go of Harry's arm. Fred then handed her a plate of tuna salad, successfully distracting her.

"Hey, why's that bloke trying to drill a hole in me head with a glower?" Ben asked, nodding at Ron.

"That's our brother Ron." The Weasely twins chorused.

"I'm afraid-" George said,

"-Our Ronniekins-" Fred cut in,

"-Is still stuck-"

"-In a world where-"

"-Gryffindors are good-"

"-And Slytherins are evil." Fred concluded.

Ben rolled his eyes.

"Aw, crikey mate. Look mate, I'm a Jedi. Look, I've got the lightsabre," he ranted, waving the metal-bodied flashlight, "And the dogtags mate," and he waved his dogtags around, "And my dad's Grand Warlord Chaos, what more proof do you want mate? I'm a Jedi Knight, which kinda rules out evil-ing and rogue necromancer-ing, mate."

"You could be a Sith." Ron growled.

Harry stood up.

"Cool, you know what a Sith is." He said.

"Uh?" Ron asked. "Sure I do."

"Then you know what this buckle means." Harry remarked, clenching a hand on his belt each side of the death's head buckle. "And let me guess, you know what the Order of Talos is?"

"Sure I do." Ron repeated.

Harry flicked up his dogtags with their mandala pendant.

"They're there for a reason." He said, sitting back down. "Listen, Ron. Seventy-five years ago this galaxy was shaken by a four-sided war over that whole darkside-lightside thing, and in the end the conclusion was exactly the one I arrived at. Power isn't good. Power isn't evil. Power is just power. It's **people** who're good or evil. So my old friend and comrade Ben Chaos of the Jedi Order happened to have a hat say the S-word at him? So what? You wanted to know why I spent so long talking to Donald? It was because he didn't have the faintest damn clue **what** house to put me in."

"So what's your story anyway mate?" Bruce asked Harry.

"My father used to build cargo Zepplins for the government of Peru." Harry said. "As for my mother, she was a surgically altered gibbon; they were tragically killed in a motor scooter accident the year before I was born, that's the problem with transtemporal pregnancies. I spent most of my childhood on the street in Taiwan being raised by cannibal hamsters. Then when I was twelve I accidentally teleported to London and found Daigon Alley, I ended up stowing away aboard a Frognorfian freighter during an argument with an aggravated alcoholic albino Adruzeg, and from there landed up on Kendarat, where I got involved with the Thousand Kingdoms military. In my defence, I was very very drunk indeed."

"I'm starting to wonder if I'll ever hear a straight answer about your past." Hermione remarked.

Harry smirked. "Old saying, Hermione. There is a time for truth. There is a time for lies. And there is a time for complete and utter bullshit."

"That's a hideous misquoting of a poor defenceless saying, mate." Ben remarked, slowly shaking his head. "It should be 'And there is a time for all things among the sea of stars' not 'And there is a time for complete and utter bullshit', mate."

"Shaddup Ben, I'm allowed to mutilate draconian sayings. I am after all directly descended from the Dragon King of Arcadia."

"And I'm the Empress of Old Atlantis." Alice muttered, rolling her eyes.

"No way, your sense of humour's far worse than hers." Harry told her, receiving a stuck out tongue for his efforts.

"Look mate, if you don't wanna talk about your past that's cool." Bruce said.

Harry snorted quietly to himself.

"Power of disinformation, Bruce. Start enough suitably lurid rumours and nobody'll believe the truth even if you smack them in the face with it."

"And let's just say our Johnsonator's got reasons to want that, mate." Ben provided, a comically serious look on his face, or maybe that should be seriously comical. Or both.

"Indeed. Hey, Johnson." A deep voice rumbled. "I'm heading up to make sure my kit's all squared away; I'll meet you at whatever this place uses for a common room in half an hour, you cool?"

Harry nodded, and turned his head to grin at the huge Kenti who was stood beside him with a thoughtful look on his face; Hermione idly noted that Tara had frozen up with an expression like S'tarak'hai was the Grim Reaper.

"You got it, R- S'tarak'hai."

"I suggest the Gryffindor hangout, mate." Ben said. "It's got the best pool table, and there's plenty sofas to sit on and natter. I'll be up the Slytherin hangout in twenty; I'll show you the way to Gryffindor ground."

"We'll be there." S'tarak'hai said, inclined his head, and slouched off, having to duck to get under the doorframe.

"How do you _know_ that **hulk**?" Ron asked.

"Don't call him that!" Tara snapped, unfreezing to glare at the unfortunate redheaded boy.

"Ron, if you've got any sense you won't call Talon Alpha First Class S'tarak'hai R'hara'tath a hulk." Harry stated. "Anyway, he was part of the relief forces back on Shenth at Garg's Landing."

"Strewth, you got caught in **that** mess?" Alice squeaked.

Harry sighed. "Involved, hell. When the jimcracks hit Shenth, any civvie on the planet was handed a slugthrower and packed off to the front, regardless of nationality or age; the Garkers didn't stand a hope in Hell and they knew it and we knew it. They gave me a gun, stuck a badge on my shoulder and called me a sergeant because I killed the drill instructor. At the beginning of Garg's Landing I was running a six-man squad. The officer casualty rate was so bad that at the end of the first week I was the only surviving officer in the entire _city_. By the time the Kenti relieved us, there was eighty-seven left out of **twenty thousand** those Garker bastards sent to Garg's Landing."

"You're not bullshitting this time, are you mate." Bruce said. It wasn't a question.

"I knew the name Harry Johnson was familiar from somewhere." Tara said, nodding. "You're the kid who managed to keep Mastersmith N'alat'yai G'ral'taraka's eldest son alive through that lot, aren't you?"

Harry nodded.

"Yeah." He said. "Listen, I really don't want to talk about that hell at the moment, OK? I'm in a fairly good mood and I don't want to waste it."

"Don't blame you." Ben quietly stated.

"Strewth… sorry I reminded you of bad stuff." Alice said.

"It's cool, Alice. You didn't know."

"I resent," a voice said, "Being called offensive names."

Harry turned round.

A tall, very handsome, long-haired guy with ears even longer than Harry's and a stuck-up expression on his face was sneering at Harry. He was dressed in tight white trousers, high soft boots, a tight high-necked scale-mail vest, a silver circlet, leather bracers and a Gryffindor robe.

There was a click.

"Look down." Harry said.

Everyone did. Nobody failed to notice the insanely gigantic revolver that was pointed at the elf's crotch.

"I was on Shenth when your government came sauntering over the border killing anything that moved. When I say 'jimcrack' I'm talking about the babykilling bastards who firebombed a kindergarten as a way of announcing hostilities." Harry conversationally remarked. "So either get a grip or get the Hell out my face before I'll blow your balls off."

The elf left with a haughty sniff and a sneer.

"Typical Lereneth." Lee Jordan grumbled. "He's some sort of duke from an old Deladarian slaver family, and he's just as oily a bastard as you'd expect."

Harry snorted. "In other words; stuck-up jimcrack fuck. Shit, so much for my good mood – I thought I'd left that type rotting in a ditch on Shenth." He put his gun away.

"Harry mate, your hands are shaking."

"Shellshock does that, Bruce." Harry said. "Shellshock does that."

**End chapter.**

General revision 18/ April /07, improvements to formatting.

Further general revision 25/April/07, more improvements to formatting.

Usual chances of response to flames apply.

AUTHOR'S NOTES

Nothing much this time; it should be fairly self-explanatory.

**OMAKE OMAKE OMAKE OMAKE OMAKE OMAKE FNORD**

Voldemort was dead.

He was indeed an ex-Dark Lord.

He was pushing up daisies.

He had gone to a worse place.

This did of course leave his unfortunate executioner to confront a much more feared entity; the press.

"How did you kill You-Know-Who, Mr Potter?" Rita Skeeter squalled.

"Er, I didn't." Harry said.

There was a frozen silence.

"You mean he's still alive?" Someone gasped.

"No, he's dead." Harry said.

"Then how did he die?" another someone asked.

"Well, I duelled him. I duelled him up and down; I duelled him east and west, I duelled him north and south; I duelled him all over the place. I even duelled him in and out." Harry said, sounding smug. "Just when we were both getting a bit exhausted I saw the 9:15 for London Euston coming and sidestepped; he was run down by an Intercity 125."

"So he was killed by-"

"It cut off his legs and he mislaid his wand, then he fell into a marathon Teletubbies showing." Harry continued, sounding very smug. "After twelve hours he managed to crawl clear and fell into a non-stop Pokemon expo."

"Egads."

"Thirty hours later he managed to crawl out of that, but he fell into a showing of every Barney episode." Harry carried on, sounding smugger. "Sixty-two hours after that, just as his brain was starting to ooze out of his ears, he found his wand and promptly shot himself in the head with the Killing Curse."

"You mean…"

"Yes. He committed suicide due to over-exposure to children's TV." Harry concluded, sounding utterly self-satisfied.

At that moment, a very large number of purebloods decided that maybe the Dark Wizarding thing might be a really bad idea.

(AN: There's so many ways to torture the Voldemort – this is fun!)


	6. Chapter 6

**This ain't no self-insert fic.**

**This ain't no slash fic neither.**

**This is Top Dog.**

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--- 30th July, 1996 ---

--- Pineridge, Findhorn Foundation, Moray, Scotland ---

Here is a bedroom.

All is peaceful and still. A tiny blonde girl lies fast asleep, in the centre of an enormous tangle of blankets and quilts. She is quite a pretty creature, in her mid teens from the look of her. From the look of the articles of clothing that are strew haphazardly across the floor, she is at that slightly awkward age when young ladies begin to realise there are certain very interesting differences between themselves and boys. The only sound is the ticking of a clock.

Here is a fully-grown Siberian tigress.

A highly-efficient biological killing machine the size of a large motorcycle, the tigress carefully picks her way through the widely-strewn clothing, places her front paws upon the bed, lowers her head to the blonde's face, opens her fearsome jaws, and licks the girl's nose.

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"EEEARGH! KATARINA! PTOOIE! CAT GERMS! CAT GERMS! EEEARGH! I'M INFECTED WITH CAT GERMS! I'M GONNA DIE!"

Bob Lovegood blinked in startled remembrance as his fifteen-year-old daughter's holler of complaint echoed through the house.

"Oh yes, that's right, I have a daughter!"

Shortly thereafter, Luna arrived in the kitchen / living room that formed most of the lower floor of the Lovegood home. She was obviously having an unconventional morning from the fact she was dressed entirely in black; back-to-front black Weird Al Yankovic T-shirt, black denim jeans from their failed attempt to tie-dye something a colour darker than black, black Jesus sandals with mismatched black socks underneath, and a set of black underpants upon her head. Bob was fairly certain the underpants belonged to their next-door neighbour; he decided he didn't want to know. Likewise for why Luna was brandishing a blue plastic spaghetti server.

"I am embarking on a vitally important ninja mission." Luna calmly informed him. For some reason, she was sitting upon her pet tigress's back.

"Will you be back in time for lunch?" Bob unconcernedly asked.

"I am not as yet sure." Luna said. "I may be away for some time. I had a very important vision, and now I have to break into Hogwarts and add my name to this year's student master list before it's too late. The consequences of my not going would be too horrible to contemplate. I will need the car."

"I see. Take my slingshot from the cupboard in the toolshed, and be exceptionally sneaky." Bob advised.

"Thankyou, Daddy." Luna said, and departed, still mounted upon the tiger.

Bob nodded thoughtfully.

It was good to see Luna getting out of the house instead of staying in her room and sacrificing lentils to the Lord of the Banana People.

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Ten hours later, Luna was back, seeming very pleased with herself. Bob had by this time forgotten their conversation (in fact, Luna had to yet again remind him he had a daughter) so the success (or failure) of her mission was a question that remained unasked until three days later when her Hogwarts letter arrived. Bob had of course forgotten by the next day.

And then, of course, there was the day of getting on the train, whereupon Luna once more ran over a mental checklist of preparations.

Big posters scattered around the house bearing photographs of her and the words 'Bob Lovegood, you have a daughter. Try to remember', check.

Hundredweight box of Tiger Chow, check.

Sixteen changes of socks; check.

Stanley knife; check.

Plentiful supply of biros; check.

Six different grades of pencil; check.

Three lined A4 refill pads; check.

One ream plain A4 paper; check.

Sundry erasers, pencil sharpeners, etc; check.

"I believe I have everything." Luna said, and left her room.

Her father blinked as she arrived in the living room.

"Is it no-clothes-day?" he asked.

Luna looked down, said, "Ah, that's what I was forgetting." and returned to her room to get dressed.

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**Disclaimer: I'm not listening, la la la.**

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**Top Dog: Enter the Fnords**

**Book 1: Harry Johnson and the Headmaster's Socks.**

**A Doghead13 / United Galaxies fanfic**

**Written & produced by Calum J 'Doghead13' Wallace**

**Brought to you by Hairy Scottish Git Productions, GMBH**

**This is not a drill.**

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**Chapter 6: Arrival, the finale.**

**(In which the arrival sequence comes to a close)**

---Present day---

---Great Hall, Hogwarts Collegium, Ross-shire, Scotland---

All of which led to the oddly-dressed little blonde who came very purposefully over from the Ravenclaw table, seated herself between Hermione Granger and Dean Tomas, resolutely withdrew a book (One Thousand Things to Do with a Noodle) from down the front of her trousers, opened it, turned to page 222, turned it upside-down and began reading from back to front.

Hermione blinked, completely nonplussed by this odd apparition. The diminutive blonde was dressed in an inside-out check shirt, a T-shirt marked 'Treacle of Fish', tie-dyed denim jeans with the knees worn out, Jesus sandals with mismatched socks underneath, four assorted belts (one of which was acting as a necklace) and a pair of denim shorts as a hat. She also had a very large tiger resting it's head on her shoulder, purring, and drooling.

"I think I just blew my weirdness compensator." Hermione said.

"It's okay, Hermione." The blonde said. "Katarina doesn't have any germs."

Hermione stared blankly at her, by now completely confused.

The blonde looked up, a puzzled look momentarily on her face, then blinked her unusually large protruding silver eyes.

"Oh. I forgot again; silly me, you don't know me yet. My name is Luna Dolphin Lovegood. I will often confuse and frustrate you with my failure to conform to even what few expectations you still carry, but we will become quite good friends eventually." She calmly went back to her book.

Harry contemplated her for a long moment.

"So, what makes you say that?" he asked.

Luna glanced back up.

"I frequently dream about such things." She said.

"You're a seer, aren't you?" Harry checked.

Luna frowned, still reading.

"Perhaps." She said. "I am not really certain. How can anyone truly now themselves? The vast majority of the humanic mind is after all subconscious. I believe my subconscious is connected to the fabric of reality in such a way that I get glimpses of possible futures. You'd be better to ask your daughter about that, it kind of falls under her job description, doesn't it?"

Harry contemplated that for a moment.

"Yeah, it does." He muttered.

At about that point, Dumbledore did his bang-fork-on-plate, loudly-clear-throat, Belch-O-Doom thing again.

"Aah, that's better now isn't it?" he PA'ed. "Anyway, it's time for those announcements I was talking about earlier. Firstly, I'd like to introduce our two new tutors. Joining us from Timbuktu, Professor Mycroft Quirrel will be teaching Assault Magecraft, and joining us from the heart of the Old Atlantean Empire, Professor Setsuna Meiuu will be replacing Professor Binns as he has finally noticed he is dead."

Harry's voice lanced through the ripple of laughter like a laser beam:

"**Hi, Setsuna!**"

The beautiful green-haired woman smiled, waved, and shouted "**Hi Dad!**" back to him, resulting in a stunned silence.

"… I beg your pardon?" Dumbledore asked.

"One of the incoming students is my father." Setsuna said with a shrug.

"… I see; how peculiar. Anyway, you will all find copies of the school rulebook in your room; please familiarise yourselves with it. I do have a couple of addenda to the rules which we haven't so far got around to adding in. Firstly, the use of all vehicles including lift belts, thruster packs, motor scooters, flying broomsticks, powerboards, bicycles, pogo sticks, grav boots and flying carpets indoors is strictly prohibited, with the exception of the correct garages or the use of wheelchairs of course."

"**Cool, they didn't ban motorised roller-skates!**" Harry shouted.

"Motorised roller-skates are likewise banned. Secondly, it is against the school rules and, in fact, Earth law, to kill other students, even if both involved students are members of the military forces of two warring nations. I would like to remind our incoming New Atlantean, Kenti and League students that Earth is after all a neutral planet, and all the Galactic Council laws regarding conduct in neutral systems apply."

"**I hope we're allowed to defend ourselves!**" Harry yelled.

"And use of lethal force in self-defence is not encouraged. Thirdly, the third sub-level has a nasty infestation of flesh-eating mutant Brazilian termites; the stairs and lifts are clear, but all other areas on the third sub-level are currently off-limits due to being inimical to carbon-based life."

"**I'm glad I'm silicone-based!**" Harry yodelled.

"And off-limits means off-limits to everyone, silicone-based life-forms included. Fourthly, if you wish to engage in target practise with your firearms please use Hagrid's firing range, which I am sure he'd be more than happy to show any of you; please note that he's requested that nobody use anti-matter weapons, limpet mines, hand grenades or orbit-to-surface weaponry on his firing range ever again, this means you Ben Chaos. And finally the Forbidden Forest is as the name suggests strictly off limits unless you're with Hagrid as it is extremely dangerous. That is all."

"… orbit-to-surface weaponry?!?!" Hermione mouthed, staring at Ben, who looked a bit embarrassed.

"Right, first thing tomorrow I'm taking an RPG-7 down the firing range." Harry said, nodding firmly. Ben stifled the bark of laughter.

McGonagall rose.

"Attention please, Gryffindors. Our gravball try-outs are scheduled for the first Saturday in September, at the gravball field; anyone who'd like to try out for this year's team is welcome to turn up. Secondly, due to an unfortunate incident involving a recipe for nitro-glycerine, Michelle Chaos, Fleggitt Nelkroddly and the Weasely twins, our house kitchen is currently unusable as it has been blown completely off the castle. Professor Sprout has assured me that any Gryffindors who wish to prepare their own meals are more than welcome to use the Hufflepuff kitchens, as long as they don't blow the place up, Fred and George. That is all."

"… nitro-glycerine!?!?" Hermione mouthed, staring at Fred, who looked smug.

A tall, pale-skinned, hook-nosed, grease-haired man stood up next.

"Attention, Slytherins. Our gravball try-outs are scheduled for the day after the Gryffindor try-outs; if you want a shot at getting onto the team, that's your chance for the year. Secondly, we are still trying to locate the person or persons responsible for painting Eraktuku Maglaheri's room neon pink; if anyone has any evidence I would be delighted to hear. Thirdly, anyone caught smoking in the Slytherin hangout will receive one free anal boot implant courtesy of me; that's what the smoking lounge is there for, Mr Chaos. That is all."

"I keep telling you Sev mate, my name's Ben."

"And my name is Severus, Mr Chaos."

"… painted someone's room neon pink?!?!" Hermione mouthed, staring blankly at the varied people she'd taped as practical jokers; Ben, the Weasely twins, and Fleggitt. All of them looked smug.

An incredibly short rotund elderly man took his chance.

"Attention, Ravenclaws. Our gravball try-outs are scheduled for this coming Saturday. I feel that the school gravball cup has sat upon Minerva's mantelpiece long enough, so let's make a good showing. That is all."

A short, fat, middle-aged woman rose next.

"Attention, Hufflepuffs. We will be having our gravball try-outs the day after the Hufflepuffs. If you're interested in playing, please be there. Secondly, would the person who left a pregnant track-cat in my office please reclaim her; she's awfully sweet and the kittens are just adorable, it'd be a terrible shame to see her kept apart from her owner, and I'd really like to keep one of the kittens if that's okay with the mother's owner."

"You've found Mia? Oh, praise the gods!" a tall, slender dusky-skinned girl with even more prominent pointy ears than Harry's, featureless glowing blue-white eyes, massive eyebrows and deep purple hair said, standing up. "She always hides somewhere when she's about to give birth, and when she took off just before school broke up I was awfully worried."

"Well, Ariaka dear, your Mia's fine." The short fat woman told her. "If you'd like to come past my office in a moment you could pick her up."

"I'll do that."

"Well, that was easily resolved. That is all."

Dumbledore snapped his fingers; the left-over food vanished with a repeat of the shimmering pillars of blue light.

"Would all our first year students kindly follow their house prefects to their dorms. Goodnight, everyone."

"Flesh-eating termites, people using orbital bombardments on a firing range, people cooking up nitro-glycerine in the kitchen and someone's room getting unexpectedly painted neon pink. This place is mental." Hermione said, slowly shaking her head.

"Is that hot new tutor seriously your daughter?" Fred asked Harry.

"Touch my daughter and die, Weasely." Harry said. "Besides, she's in a stable long-term relationship with Prince Suza Far-Eyes."

The twins roared with laughter for a few moments, then suddenly stopped when they realised neither Harry nor Ben were laughing.

"… you're serious?" George asked.

Harry smirked.

"Ask Setsuna. The answer you'll get will either be 'that's none of your damn business, sunshine' or 'yes', it depends on how bad a mood she's in." He then turned to Ben. "Hey Ben, orbit-to-surface weaponry on the firing range?"

"Aw crikey mate, it was just a little cruiser keelgun…" Ben said.

"You enlarged the loch." Fred pointed out.

"Only a little."

"You created a crater fifty metres across." George pointed out.

"Who exactly is this Suza person?" Hermione asked.

Ben grinned, glad for the change of subject. "He's the Crown Prince of Arcadia, sheila." He said.

"That doesn't mean much to me." Hermione admitted.

Harry smirked. "He's about a hundred and eighty feet long, head to tail, with a wingspan of three hundred feet and bronze scales. He's trustworthy, but I'm telling you, he's one weird dragon. Hell, he finds humanic women sexually attractive."

"Strewth!" Ben said, seeing Hermione's expression. "You mean you didn't know about Arcadian dragons?"

"Well… that'd be a no." Hermione deadpanned.

"Largest most dangerous sentient species in known space. Oh, and they're all extremely powerful in a magic-level kinda way." Harry remarked. "They're about eight feet long in the body at hatching. An adult Arcadian dragon is at least three thousand years old, and a seriously fucking impressive creature. Body length at least sixty feet with a tail about one-sixth shorter than that and another one-sixth of neck, and a head longer than I am. Wingspan a hundred eighty feet and up. They're tough enough to shrug off a direct hit from an orbital strike weapon, their claws are sharp enough to rip through battle armour like a hot knife through butter, and their halitosis is able to melt nanohardened duranium in a matter of seconds. Hell, a young adult is a one-on-one match for any destroyer-class starship in the galaxy. They just keep getting bigger, tougher, and more dangerous."

"They're also frighteningly intelligent." Tara remarked.

"How so?" Hermione asked.

Harry snorted.

"An adult Arcadian dragon's brain weighs about two hundred fifty kilos and they use the whole damn thing. You want multitasking? How about being able to think about sixty things at the exact same go? Hell, their brains have the processing power of a starship's superluminal helm computer, and that's fucking much."

"Buggers been around since before the Greenscuts, and they'll still be around once we're dust in the solar wind." Ben said, shrugging.

"Let's talk about something else, this gets boring." Fred remarked, much to Hermione's brief but extreme annoyance.

"Hey Fleggitt," a newly-arrived guy said. ""Did you hear how Filch's hair all fell out after that thing with the thunderflash?"

"Oh I say, splendid, splendid!" Fleggitt gloated. "That reprobate should never have tried to confiscate my poor cyberhound, eh what?"

"What'd you _do_ to him?" Fred asked.

"Oh, you'd be _astounded_ what a thunderflash, some twine, a cheap laser pistol and some simple applications of levers can do." Fleggitt remarked.

"He rigged this booby-trap in Filch's office." Ben said in a sotto voice. "It set off a thunderflash inside his desk when he sat down."

The twins (and the newcomer) cracked up laughing. Fleggitt looked smug.

"My dear mother," he said, "Gave me my faithful cyberhound as a nameday gift, and I most assuredly will not allow some Earther reprobate to confiscate it when it isn't even on the banned items list, and I would most certainly not let that dreadful little man confiscate it even if it were! I quite simply couldn't care less if it menaced his dreadful feline, that awful creature earned it, what with urinating in my alchemy equipment, eh what? My cauldron is most assuredly **not** a urinal for small unpleasant non-sentient life-forms; it is a receptacle for brewing diabolical concoctions and causing alarming scents."

"I hate to sound stupid, but what's a thunderflash?" Hermione asked, starting to get annoyed with the number of questions she was having to ask.

"It's basically the explosives out of a hand grenade without the metal case." Harry told her. "It's normally used to simulate artillery fire in military exercises. When it goes off, it causes a Hell of a bang and throws loose crap around with a lot of force. Setting one off in someone's desk is just plain cruel." He turned to Fleggitt. "I like your style."

"There's this trick a mate of mine who's in the army told me about." The newly-arrived guy remarked. "You know those loos that're a whole line of holes leading into the same pit, only walled off from each other? Well, you wait till there's someone in each side of you, drop in a thunderflash, stick your helmet over the hole and sit on it. The guys each side are gonna get a shit-load of shit come flying up at them, so you'd better run like Hell after the bang."

"Lee Jordan you're disgusting." A nearby girl accused.

"What do you think those new tutors are gonna be like?" George asked Ben.

Luna looked up from her book.

"Professor Quirrel is an evil stutterbunny who reads way too much Bram Stoker." She said. "Professor Meiuu, however, is a good teacher who hates Death Widdlers as much as you do."

"Gryffindor first years, over here!" someone shouted. A peer around or over the crowd showed that someone to be another redhead with a distinct familial resemblance to Fred, George and Ron.

"Gwiffindoor fiwst weaws." Fred muttered, rolling his eyes. "Like he's the only one who knows how to get to the dorms."

"Us new kids don't know how to get to the dorms." Hermione pointed out.

"There's maps." George said with a shrug. "This old pile of rocks is a bit of a tangle, but it's actually pretty straightforward."

"You know, I can't help but notice a whole string of vehicles they didn't specifically ban." Harry remarked as they began moving in the general direction of the flow of Gryffindors. "Motorbikes, jetcycles, cars, sleds, quads, motorised skateboards, unicycles, monowheels, power armour…"

"You're having an evil scheme, aren't you mate?" Ben checked.

"I'm just cataloguing methods of fucking with the staff." Harry said with a shrug. "Look, Ben. I've heard some of the tutors don't exactly take much notice of the staff conduct regulations. Particularly in connection with someone by the name of Snape."

"Snape's the Slytherin head." Fred said. "And he's a bastard."

"He's a former Death Eater and he doesn't exactly make it a secret." George remarked.

"Everyone knows Snape's got something on Dumbledore. McGonagall's too busy being the deputy head first and the transmogrification tutor second, there's no room left for Gryffindor head." Fred cut in.

"I heard Snape and Dumbledore were boyfriends." George said.

"That'd make sense." Ben muttered.

"Whatever's going on, the fact of the matter is that Snape can do any damn thing he likes." Fred said. "And nobody'll ever do anything about it, because for some reason Dumbledore wants Slytherin to win the House Cup every year, I've got no idea what the deal is."

"So basically, nobody apart from the staff, the Death Munchkins and some of the more head-up-arse prefects like our big brother Percy actually give a shit about points or the house cup." Fred said with a shrug.

"Same goes for 'house rivalry'." Ben agreed. "I've never picked my mates over something a stuffed-up _hat_ said to them, and I never will. That's just _petty_."

"If you're interested, the price is twenty thousand New Aussie dollars plus costs." Harry remarked. "Twice that if you don't want me to make it look like an accident, my criminal record's already extensive enough. I'll cut it to ten grand if you can arrange a valid reason for me to challenge the target to a Talosian trial by combat."

The twins stared at him.

"What are you talking about?" Fred asked.

Harry looked faintly bemused.

"How much it'll cost to have me kill Snape." He said. "Isn't that what we were talking about?"

"Holy _shit_, you're serious?" Fred boggled.

Harry shrugged.

"I've done plenty wet-work." He said. "The price is twenty thousand plus the necessary bribes to get the authorities to look the other way, and of course the cost of the bullets. In real-world terms we're talking about twenty-five grand."

"So… what's it feel like to kill someone?" Ron chirped up. Hermione was about to tell him off when Harry replied.

"Well, first there's pressure on the back of your finger, not much though, it depends how heavy you've got the trigger pull set. Then recoil, maybe a bit of heat from the muzzle blast. Then you're moving on to the next target, or reloading." He said.

"… and that's it?" Ron blankly asked.

"Of course." Harry said. "It's not a big deal. It's just a pull of the trigger."

"You are one cold bastard." Fred said, awed.

"True, but you know what? I'm an _**alive**_ cold bastard." Harry pointed out.

"You mean, you don't feel any regret?" Ron asked. He looked a touch ill.

Harry shrugged.

"Well, the first few times you get nightmares and such, I guess. Then you just stop caring. It's so easy; you just aim and fire, and that's it."

"I think you care very deeply." Hermione said.

"How'd you figure that?" Harry asked.

"Oh come on. My uncle was in the SAS during the Falklands War." Hermione snapped. "I've seen it in his eyes. He did those things because if he didn't his family would have to live in a world where the bad guys won."

Harry smiled slightly.

"Whatever makes it easier for you to sleep at night." He said.

Then a walking stick bounced off his head. His reaction was instantaneous and spectacular; he dropped, rolled, turned it into a breakfall, and came up with a gun in each hand aimed in the direction the wooden projectile had come from.

"The _Hell_?" he said.

"Peeves, a poltergeist." The person who was apparently a Gryffindor prefect and looked to be a Weasely said, ducking another ballistic walking stick. "Alright, show yourself Peeves!"

There was a pop, and a short fat man appeared in midair. He had several walking sticks in his hands, and was cackling gleefully.

"Oooh, ickle first-YIKE!"

That last part was obviously not how Peeves had intended to finish his sentence. It was a reaction to what Harry had just done; sent half a dozen massive chunks of lead into the walking sticks, smashing them to fragments, and blowing some good-sized chunks out the wall.

Then he holstered the pair of E-Mags, and hauled a pump-action shotgun out of his trenchcoat.

"I've got this loaded with soulkillers, dead boy." He shouted. "Perfect for dealing with snotty dead punks who piss me off."

"oh crap, I'm offski!" Peeves squawked, and put action to word.

"Eeeh, why do you carry soulkillers?" Fred asked, backing away from Harry.

"I don't. It's what's called a bluff. This is full of segments of pencil." Harry said, loud enough that everyone heard him (apart from Peeves, who was halfway to Slytherin turf by now) then returned the SPAS12 to it's shotgun holster inside his trenchcoat. "Soaked in a mix of aconite juice and angel's tears. They're excellent catch-all anti-gribbly shells, they'll splatter weres, demons, vampires and doppelgangers just great, and a lot of other things can't survive a bunch of ballistic pencil."

"That was pretty slick." The apparently-Weasely apparently-prefect said. "Come on; let's get to the dorm before anything else goes wrong."

The dorm was up two flights of stairs and round a corner, where an archway surmounted by a sculpture of a griffin stood. Inside that was a large room, decorated in red and gold, with a bunch of entertainment gear; two pool tables, a TV, snack and drinks machines, varied upright arcade game machines, a huge ornate old jukebox, dozens of comfortable-looking sofas, varied low tables and what looked to be a drinks machine loaded with beer; there was a staircase up at the far end of the room, toilets off to the left, and a boarded up door marked 'Kitchens' and 'Out of Order' on the right. Several people were already hanging around; a pool game was in process, and an old Iron Maiden album was playing on the jukebox.

The Weasely twins pounced.

"Hiiii, and welcome to House Gryffindor!" they chorused, landing up flanking the slightly elder redhead and both vigorously noogieing him. "In case you didn't know, we are the humorous heart of House Gryffindor, the incredible, irreplaceable, irrepressible, Fred and George Weasely! This is our number one Gryffindor poncy prefect, also our snooty brother, Percy Weasely. Aaaaand you're in the Gryffindor hangout, the best-equipped place of relaxation in the entire Collegium! Welcome aboard, it's great to see you all!"

"Whatever." Percy Weasely said in a disgusted tone of voice, shrugging them off. "Anyway, this is the Gryffindor hangout. There's munch and drinks machines over there, the game machines, pool tables, TV, TriD and vidcart player are free for the using but don't hog them, the toilets are through there, the rooms are up those stairs, if you need anything track down me or one of the other sixth years, but it had better be important. Your names are on the doors, so don't start complaining that you can't find yours until you've checked the lot. Curfew's at midnight, that's when the dorm door is locked, so don't be elsewhere after that or you'll get a well-earned bollocking from the security staff. You're welcome to have friends about; there are maps in your school rulebooks, no using jetcycles indoors, Thankyou and goodnight."

"Rant." Bruce said. "Rant, rant."

"Bruce mate, do us all a favour and shut up." Alice fired over her shoulder as she headed upstairs to find her room.

A couple of moments later she came storming back down.

"Bruce! BRUCE!"

"Jeez sheila, don't go blowing any gaskets." Bruce sardonically replied.

"Bruce mate, the stupid bastards have put us in different fucking rooms." Alice growled. "Who the fuck is this Hermione Granger sheila anyway? We were supposed to be in the same fucking room! What the fuck do those fucking retards take us for Bruce? No girls and guys in the same room my ARSE!"

"The Hermione Granger Sheila's me." Hermione pointed out. "And there's no Sheila in my name."

"Calm down Skipper, we know you're desperate." Tara instructed. "Who's Bruce in with, Alice?"

"Neville Longbottom."

"Er, me?" Neville asked, sounding a touch worried.

Tara charged up the stairs and came back down with a smirk on her face.

"Hey Bruce, I'm in a single. How about this. Neville, you take the single, Bruce and Alice go in you and Bruce's room, and I room with Hermione."

"Er…" said Neville.

"I wouldn't mind the single." Harry put in. "It'd be nice to have a bit of room to myself. Tell you what, I take Tara's room, Neville rooms with whoever I was going to room with, Bruce and Alice take Bruce and Neville's room and Tara rooms with Hermione."

"Fine by me." Everyone involved said, or variants thereof; Bruce and Alice shot off upstairs to undertake some guerrilla nametag rearrangement.

"That was weird." Said Ron.

"You think that was weird?" Percy asked. "Just wait till you get to know Ben and Michelle Chaos. _**Then**_ you'll see weird."

**End Chapter**

Posted with update; formatting current as of 25/April/07. Having (finally) checked the preview on I'm reverting to a similar style of scene breaks to those I used in the original Biker ½ in the hope they don't get lost in formatting. The ' --- ' scene breaks are slightly jarring, but do not abruptly vanish on being posted. Hopefully this'll be the last time I have to engage in a general revision as they are getting more and more involved to undertake.

Slight update 27/April/07. I'd managed to typo the chapter number. Duh! Also, 29 years on this planet and they still ain't got me yet! Go me!

Slight update 21/May/o7, removing an inconsistency.

Usual chances of response to flames apply.

**Author's Notes - **

Just so you know, this thing is meant to contain a fairly even blend of humour, tension, and mystery. Harry is intended to be, as he puts it, 'an _**alive**_ cold bastard'; call him dark if you like, I call him a realist. He's a nasty piece of work, but he's that way for a damn good reason, and he's the sort of person magi society will very shortly need; the kind who's willing to finish the job.

These first few chapters are dedicated to establishing things for later on, which is why they're fairly slow-paced and rely on a lot of humour to keep the story rolling along. I don't plan on cutting the humour later on, but I do plan on upping the tension and having a goodly bit of stuff getting blown up, and there will be a few rather dark and serious sections.

I selected Hermione's point-of-view as the primary POV certainly for the early stages of this story as she knows about as much as the reader; I plan on sticking with telling this thing through Hermione's eyes for this first book except, of course, for those bits where she isn't present that have to be played out on-screen. Consistency is a good thing, but there are degrees of everything.

I'll explain what the deal with the Chaos family is later in the story, once a suitable point crops up. For now let's just say there's a _reason_ Ben can get away with calling Snape 'Sev mate'. I once again stress that the assorted new characters are here for a reason, and it's not just to bulk up the student population.

Luna is here for plot-related reasons, but they're an excuse to have her at the Collegium early because she's fun. Her tiger is there because she needed a protector, UF's Kate Hutchins has a very cool tiger, and I thought Luna should have one too. I sited her in the Findhorn Foundation because of how easily I could see this place producing someone like the canon Luna. Yes, there will be an explanation of the tiger before long.

An RPG-7 is an old shoulder-launched anti-tank launcher, similar thing to a Stinger or TOW but a lot cruder and cheaper.

A soulkiller is essentially a bullet enchanted to carry something so close to the Killing Curse it makes no real difference. In this continuity, the Av Kav works just as well on a ghost as it functions by destroying the target's soul. The legal loophole that makes soulkiller enchantments legal will be explained much later in the story.

As for the thing with the thunderflash and the toilets, a mate who was in the British Army described that one to me.


	7. Chapter 7

**This ain't no self-insert fic.**

**This ain't no slash fic neither.**

**This is Top Dog.**

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A dream cannot tell what truth it holds until the sleeper…

…wakes.

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Consciousness returned slowly. A weird, nebulous dream of places she'd never been and things she'd never done, that twisted and faded into the dull background noise of her mind. For a moment, the light slanting across the high, white ceiling and the gentle breathing seemed like part of the dream, then she started wondering where she was; she rolled her head to the left, and found herself looking across an expanse of grubbily-carpeted floor to a black-furred feline and unmistakably female form, laying quite naked upon the other bed with the covers half thrown off; the cat-like face joined a slender neck that curved down to slim but powerful-looking shoulders; a jagged bone wing-like thing jabbed up from behind the shoulder, and a long-fingered hand rested on the pillow, half-obscuring the inky-furred breast. Below that was a slab of perfectly flat belly, then a knot of covers with one extremely long cat-like leg protruding.

She stared for a long moment as the memories surfaced and she finally knew where she was, what was going on, and who (not to mention what) the black-furred Kenti girl was.

She pushed herself upright. Her clothes were strewn on the floor; she'd been so exhausted when she got to bed that she'd just flung them off and been asleep before her head hit the pillow.

She cautiously approached the Luggage. It opened, and there was her clean laundry; she collected a set and went looking for the showers.

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Twenty minutes later, when Hermione got back from the shower, Tara was awake and carefully combing her fur. She glanced up, nodded, and went back to her combing.

"Morning." She said, her pleasant tenor voice once again giving Hermione a shock coming from such a very obviously female creature. "Sleep well?"

"Yeah, like a log." Hermione said. Tara looked back up, blinked several times, then emitted a truly startling noise; it sounded like how you'd imagine a tiger coughing would sound.

"You humans and your turns of phrase." She said, then that coughing noise again. "Like a log? Where do you get all those wonderfully absurd sayings?"

"I think that one's because a cut-down tree isn't likely to get up." Hermione said, eliciting more blinking from the catwoman.

"A… oh. Thought you meant the _other_ sort of log. Well… I guess that makes more sense, then." Tara mused, turning her combing attention to her other leg.

"Other sort of log?" Hermione checked.

"Yeah, you know, a log. Like a turd." Tara replied.

Hermione looked startled for a moment, then said, "Yeah, that wouldn't make much sense would it?"

"Can you get my back?" Tara asked.

Hermione looked puzzled. Tara held up the comb.

"My back; I'm limber, but not that much. Alice normally does it for me."

"Oh! Oh right, sure." Hermione said, accepting the comb and settling herself on the bed behind Tara.

"Follow the grain of my fur, see the pattern? From my spine outwards and back. What'd you think I meant?"

"I had absolutely no idea." Hermione admitted. "Look, I'm kinda new to there being like magic and starships and people from other planets, and it's taking a lot of getting used to."

Tara let out that coughing sound again.

"I often forget how alien I must be to you Atlantaics." She said. "It's a fucked-up thought. I often wonder what it must be like, being wingless, not having a tail, having such weird flat feet."

"We're pretty used to it, actually." Hermione admitted, privately marvelling at how soft and smooth Tara's fur was. "It's like we're wondering the complete opposite about each other."

That coughing noise once more.

"True, true. It'd be a lot weirder being room-mates with a Horta or something, at least we're both actually humanic so we've got some sort of common frame of reference… You know, I've lived with the Walkers for nearly fifteen standard years and I hadn't realised you humans have crotch fur until I saw you strip off to go to bed."

Hermione went thoroughly pink just as Tara glanced back; the catgirl emitted that coughing sound yet again.

"What's with the cough?" Hermione asked, noticing that Tara's fur was a blue-grey shade close to her skin, becoming black very shortly thereafter.

"Oh come on, it's not my fault you sound like a misfiring piston engine when you laugh." Tara said with a shrug.

"… that's laughter?"

Tara started coughing a lot, and Hermione realised all the visual cues were right, it was just the sound that was different. She was indeed being laughed at.

"That's not nice. I told you I'm new to all this." She complained.

"Sorry, sorry. It's just your _face_ when you said that… you looked like a dirtsider seeing mynocks for the first time." Tara let out a foreshortened version of the cough. "I'm sorry, I know I shouldn't needle you like this, but your expressions are just so _funny_."

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**Disclaimer: Rusty pressure hulls A Really Bad Idea.**

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**Top Dog: Enter the Fnords**

**Book 1: Harry Johnson and the Headmaster's Socks.**

**A Doghead13 / United Galaxies fanfic**

**Written & produced by Calum J 'Doghead13' Wallace**

**Brought to you by Hairy Scottish Git Productions, GMBH**

**This is not a drill.**

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**Chapter 7: Day of the Dog.**

**(In which we are properly introduced to a certain ramshackle old hot-rod starship)**

That first day was course registration. For Hermione (and presumably the rest of the first-years) this meant spending most of an hour in a queue, only to discover on getting to the head of the queue that you've got a fixed set of courses anyway, much to Hermione's brief but intense annoyance.

With that out the way, she was a free agent until Monday; she was done with it just in time for lunch.

The arrangement was substantially different to that at what people were referring to as the 'arrival feast'. The four long tables had been pulled apart into their constituent parts, and you got your food on a tray from big serving dishes, then tried to find a table with people you knew. Hermione ended up at a table with Harry, the Walker twins, Tara, and Fleggitt, because it was the first one with a free seat from which she wasn't receiving severe fuck-off-and-die vibes.

"Gudday." Bruce said as she sat down.

"Hi." She said, and took a mouthful of sausage.

"Wanna join the tour party?" Bruce asked, leaning forwards and grinning at her. She looked puzzled. "Some of the blokes asked for a show round me ship last night." Bruce clarified. "I said no worries, so we're having the twenty cent tour at two."

Hermione nodded thoughtfully. "Yeah, okay." She said. "It sounds interesting. I've never seen the insides of a starship before."

Tara let out that cough-laughter.

"Be prepared to be surprised." She said, a wry smile on her face.

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The League of Affiliated Miners and Free Traders cargo vessel LSS-17332 Blink Dog is a Mentler SVDH DX-32 Hellhound dropship. As such, she's a touch under four hundred feet long from tip of keelgun barrel to hindmost point (the tips of her twin tailfins) and she stands just under sixty-five feet tall at the hull, with her tailfins standing another twenty-five feet above that. Her wingspan is two hundred and twenty-three feet, and she weighs just under three hundred and seventy-five tons. She would be ten feet taller if she had a standard undercarriage, but she's fitted with a low profile set; it lowers her centre of gravity and thus improves her ground stability.

She's also a beat-up old ramshackle rust-bucket. Not surprising, really; after all, she's twelve thousand two hundred and sixty-two years old, and her duranium hide shows every minute of those twelve long hard millennia of service. Her hull is streaked with filth, rust, and blaster scars. There's a pattern of holes punched through her port wing, a memento of a close shave with Cardassian pirates a couple of centuries ago. Her whole frame is ever so slightly bent, the main outward sign of this being the silver line across her windshield where it was welded back together with nanites; that line extends clear from the tip of her port tailfin along her hull, across the windshield and down to the starboard side of her for'ards cargo ramp, but it's only really visible where it crosses the window. Layers of char are built up around her engines dump valves, which look somewhat out of place by being clean and brightly polished, and her name is written on her armoured flanks by the simple expedient of cleaning the letters into the grime on her ancient hide.

She's an old, travel-stained workhorse. And she packs a Hell of a punch.

Most people, when looking at a world-weary old beater like the Blink Dog, forget that the DX-32 was in it's time the highest-performance tank transport in the galaxy, able to get a platoon of three super-heavy tanks from orbit to combat in a little under a minute. And the Blink Dog has been heavily upgraded over the years; she was once an asteroid racer, and not a low-placed racer either. She was a genuine Top Five competitor for three years running, something very few vessels from any make or nation can claim. Millennia of Kenti engineering and decades of Leaguer ingenuity have gone into the Blink Dog's dirt-encrusted form, producing a fast, agile, well-armoured and heavily armed little starship capable of outrunning most opponents and making anything that can keep up seriously regret it.

She needs to.

After all, she's a blockade runner.

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"What a monster." Hermione said, looking up at the filth-streaked beast that towered over her. She looked a bit like the bastard child of a vastly overgrown jet fighter and a huge, fat-bellied military transport aircraft to Hermione's eyes, between her hulking D-profiled fuselage and the slightly incongruous aggressively swept-back delta wings, which had these even odder pods at the tips from which the ship's rear undercarriage protruded. There were four double-barrelled gun turrets the size of small houses spaced around the ship's midriff, just ahead of the leading edge of her wings; a fifth identical turret hung under her nose, above and ahead of the cargo ramp, which was big enough to swallow three tractor-trucks at the same go, and another massive gun projected from the ship's nose just above and to the left of the cockpit window.

Tara grinned at her.

"She's an old banger, but she's home to me." She said.

"Bruce my dear fellow," Fleggitt said, "This vessel is a wreck. I have seen vessels in better condition abandoned in the debris ring."

Bruce shrugged, affectionately slapping one of the thirty foot long hydraulic pistons that operated the bow ramp. "Chrissakes, Fleggitt. She's a genuine DX-32, don't you know a classic when you see one mate?"

"A DX-32? Great Scott! I say, aren't there less than a thousand of them left?"

"Yeah." Tara replied, gloomily nodding. "The greatest hot-rod frame Mentler ever built, and ninety percent of them have been wrecked or scrapped – what a fucking shame, huh? But what the hell, the Dog's as solid as the day she left the yards. If we ever sold her she'd probably end up sitting around gathering dust in some rich punk's collection, which would be a waste of a shit-hot ship."

"Too true." George agreed, admiring the battered, rusty old ship. "She's bloody awesome, man."

"That's one hell of a big gun." Hermione remarked, peering up at the yawning barrel that protruded from the left side of the ship's nose a bit above and behind the cockpit; it stuck a good eighty feet out of the front, and was wide enough that she would have been able to crawl down it's bore.

"That's an ultra-high velocity destroyer keel gun." Bruce stated, sounding extremely smug. "Azerothian built, it's from one of their AVF heavy destroyers. We found it drifting around in an asteroid belt off Sklet. Took us an age to plumb it into the old spine particle cannon housing and it's a cock getting ammo, but that little toy scares the crap outta pirates; hell, it'll even give a frigate pause for thought. It kicks the whole ship back about ten metres when you hit the trigger, even taking the kick comps into account."

"Bitchin'." Said Fred.

"An Azerothian keel gun?" Neville asked. "You're saying that's an explosive-charge-and-bullet type gun?"

"Yup, even uses brass cartridge cases mate. Looks something like a shotgun cartridge the size of a car."

"Bitchin'." George said.

"You have to admit she's a bit of a rust-bucket." Parvati remarked.

Bruce snorted.

"Look, sheila. My dad picked this ship up from the Skid Row boneyards as a non-runner for two thousand dollars, then basically hit her until she fired up. Well, admittedly he'd managed to find a semi-functioning warp drive in a tangled knot of wreckage that usta be a Clanguard destroyer, that's how he got the Dog back in space. Hell, her windscreen's still got cracks sealed over with Liquid Steel. Dad had her thirty years before he died, and me and Alice have had her for ten years now. There's hardly a week goes by that we don't manage to scrounge up a better part for something. She's cobbled together from salvage and boneyards scroungings, but for all that she works **good**. She's got a bunch of glitches, and it takes both hands and feet to fly her, but when you get everything running smoothly she goes like shit off a stick."

"What a wreck." A strident voice proclaimed; turning round, the gang found themselves looking at who they'd expected, i.e. Draco Malfoy.

Bruce smirked. "Oh, and you've got a less beat-up ship? Didn't think so mate."

"I say, Malfoy. Do us all a favour and toddle along before we have to get rather shamefully violent, what?" Fleggitt requested, sticking his nose in the air.

"Dry up, Nelkroddly." Draco snapped, sauntering forwards.

A particle blaster got in his path.

"Hold it right the fuck there mate." Bruce snarled. "The LSS-17332 is a **League** ship. _MY_ League ship. Step on that ramp and you're breaking into _**MY League ship**_, which is an act of piracy, which means I'll be completely entitled to **blast you** mate. So fuck off."

"Under the Galactic Shipping Safety and Warfare Treaty of Standard Year 148021, as amended in 150931," S'tarak'hai remarked, "Onboard a starship is sovereign territory of the nation in which the vessel is registered, therefore onboard that starship the laws of the nation in which the vessel is registered apply. And under League of Affiliated Miners and Free Traders and in fact Galactic Council law, boarding a privately-owned vessel without invitation or search warrant is an act of piracy, under which circumstances the vessel's crew are legally entitled to defend their vessel by any means available, up to and including lethal force. Onboard the vessel is defined as standing on any part that is permanently attached to the vessel or enclosed by the vessel's superstructure, cargo ramps and boarding ladders included. Got it?"

Draco hurriedly backed off; Bruce nodded and put the particle blaster away.

"Sensible bloke." He remarked. "C'mon, peeps. Not you, Malfoy."

"You'll get yours when my father's headmaster." Draco snarled, and stormed off. Bruce rolled his eyes and waved his mates after him; on arriving at the top, Bruce thumbed a button on the hatch control console and, with a yowl of aged hydraulics, the outermost flap retracted, then the whole ramp began to grind upwards, finally reaching top with a ringing clang and creak.

"Alright folks, this is C-deck, also known as the cargo bay. Down the port side, that's the left side when looking for'ards for you dirtsiders, from bow to stern we've got the keelgun supply lift, the port turret bay, the port for'ards stairs, a couple of port sideworks access doors which let you get inside the port wing, then access to the engine room. Down the starboard side, we've got the starboard turret bay, the B-deck cargo airlock which is how you load and unload in space without evacuating the cargo bay, the starboard for'ards stairs, a starboard sideworks access door, the general supplies lift, the other starboard sideworks access door, then starboard access to the engine room." Bruce said. "The line of hatches in the floor just starboard of centre up the front here lead to the underworks escape bay, the central hatch up front leads to the underworks just between the nosegear bay and the belly turret bay, that hatch further back leads to the dump pit, the hatch behind that leads into the underworks, and then behind that is the powerpack, then the engine room firewall."

Hermione looked around. This wasn't really what she'd expected the insides of a starship to look like; it was downright squalid, and reminded her of the old barns and sheds on her uncle's farm. There was junk scattered everywhere; machine components were piled against the wall, coils of heavy cable littered the floor along with several pallets of random gubbins, an area up near the back was obviously used as a workshop from the assorted tools stacked on and around two old solid lumber kitchen tables, and a half dozen very dead cars were dumped in out-the-way corners, along with a small and possibly functional if extremely rusty forklift truck. The walls were lined with metal shelves spot-welded into place, and these were heaped with more junk, some of it possibly spares but most just rusty chunks of metal or pieces of dirty plastic. Lastly, there was a picturesque mound of presumably empty drinks cans in a pallet-sized bin right beside the airlock, leaking the smell of stale beer. The whole thing was run-down and covered in dirt and rust; even the floor was pretty much made out of patches.

Tara caught Hermione's shocked look, and grinned at her.

"Quite a sight, isn't she?" she said.

"I never thought inside a starship would be so… so… so…"

"Ambient Industrial Decay?" Harry suggested. "I think she's great. Hey Bruce, is that really a last-century Fliggitprob coupe?" This was said as he pointed at one of the old cars.

"Sure is, mate." Bruce said.

"Cool… you don't see many of them around."

Bruce grinned. "They're all over the place on Gilbert. Most of Fliggitprob's final ten years of production went to the New Australia system, and most of that was for Gilbert, and you know how often Frognorfian cars wear out."

"Strictly once per never, eh what?" Fleggitt smugly remarked.

"It was sat in that corner when Dad got the Dog." Bruce said, nodding at the old car. "It's needing a lot of work. The powerplant runs, but the axles have seized rock solid. I keep promising myself I'll do it up some day, but I've never had the time."

"How come you've got an old London taxi?" George asked, peering at another rusty old car. Hermione blinked and had a closer look; right enough, it was an old-school black London taxi, complete with 'Taxi' sign on the roof. It was pretty beat-up, but in far better shape than the other wrecks.

"Got left here by a passenger." Alice said.

"Wow, they just abandoned it?" Fred asked, peering through the taxi's dusty windscreen.

"No mate." Bruce said. "Y'see, he had his fave concubine with him, and halfway through the flight she slit his throat, hijacked us, and took us back to a rat nest. They killed Mum and Dad before Tara managed to bust us out. That was when me an' Alice were seven."

"… oh. Sorry I asked." Fred said, sounding shocked and a bit ashamed.

"Not your fault mate, you didn't know." Bruce said with a shrug. "Anyway, it's been most of ten years, we're about as over it as we're ever gonna get."

"Do you want rid of that car?" George asked, indicating the taxi.

"Take it." Bruce said. "It's yours, mate."

"Aw crumbs, we can't do that!" Fred complained.

Bruce shook his head. "Look mate, I'm not taking a cent for that car. If you've got a use for it, it's yours. Selling it would feel too much like earning money off what killed our folks."

"Well, if you're sure…" George said.

"Sure I'm sure mate, I wouldn't be saying I was sure if I wasn't sure." Bruce stated the obvious.

"I've got no problem with it." Alice said. "Hell, I'd be glad to see the back of that thing. My life'd be a whole lot better without one old taxi."

"I couldn't care less. There's six dead old cars cluttering up this cargo bay, and one less is that much less junk in here." Tara said.

"Right, that's that decided." Bruce said, and kicked the taxi's bumper. "This bloody car belongs to Fred and George Weasely. Pick it up any time you like, there's no mad rush."

"Holy shit, is this what it looks like?" Harry asked, peering at a shapeless piece of rusted machinery leant against the wall behind a couple of old car doors, a coil of heavy wire and a sheet of corrugated iron.

Bruce shrugged.

"No idea what it is, mate. It was sat there when Dad got the ship."

Harry shoved the junk out the way and hauled the object of his interest away from the wall, loosing a shower of dust and rust flakes. "It is! It's an Imperial Atlantean Marines speederbike!" he crowed, fiddling with it; there was a click, then a spluttering roar, a flash of fire and a huge shower of dust from the back of the machine, then the roar choked into silence as Harry flicked the switch back up. "Holy _shit_, and it _runs_? Bruce, this thing is a fucking _**find**_"

"Er, what is it anyway mate?" Bruce asked, peering at it.

"It's a one-man fast scouting vehicle originally built for the Imperial Atlantean Marine scouts. The engine's dual straight-line electron torches, and it's lifted by, get this, _a fist-sized chunk of Levitation Stone_. It's pretty much got nothing to go wrong. The steering mechanically rotates one torch or the other. All it needs is a bunch of electricity and it goes."

"Levitation Stone?" Tara gasped, going a bit pop-eyed. "Are you serious?"

"Yup. Chunk the size of my fist, I couldn't believe my fucking eyes the first time I saw the inside of one of these things." Harry gave the machine a gentle nudge; it drifted silently away from the wall, seeming almost like it was surrounded by a private area of zero-G. "It's in there, just under the powerpack, glowing away."

"Are you sure that's a straight-line electron torch?" Bruce asked, sounding distinctly freaked out.

"Yeah, blip the throttles and you can blow a light truck in half with the exhaust." Harry said with a shrug, halting the speederbike's drift with a hand on it's seat. "Advantage is, you can blow a light truck in half with the exhaust, and no matter how filthy it gets it won't explode."

"Ye Gods." Bruce muttered, shaking his head. "Bad enough using a straight-line electron torch for welding, but as an **engine**? Gotta hand it to those Greenscuts, they were _cracked_."

"It worked, and worked well. You can take a dump up the exhausts, bury it in sand for six months, dig it up, tap out the crud, and soon as you put a charge on the powerpack it'll fire up first try." Harry said, patting the speederbike's seat. "That way, not only did they have a highly reliable fast scouting vehicle, they also had a weapon capable of burning straight through an inch of armour plate. Point the exhausts at anything you want to really screw up, hold on real tight, and endstop the throttle. Instant sabotage, and you're heading away from the scene of the crime at a goodly clip."

"Crikey, the stuff you find in old cargo bays." Bruce said, shaking his head. "Anyway, shall we carry on with the tour?"

"Something like. Bruce, if you're looking to sell that speederbike, I'm interested, OK?" Harry said.

Bruce nodded. "We'll talk about that later, mate. Right, here we go, up the starboard for'ards stairs." He hauled open the door (complete with nautical-style turn-handle-at-centre) open, and ushered them into the stairs.

The stairs led to a half-landing where they turned a right-angle, then up via another door to a hallway heading fore and aft. Doors led off the outboard side of the hallway all along, and it doglegged towards the stern; four roughly-spaced doors led off the inboard side.

"This is the starboard B-deck corridor. The next door towards the bow is medbay, then B-deck cabins 1, 3, 5, 7 and 8. Aft on this side is stores, where the general stores lift leads to, then behind that the port aft stairs leading up to A-deck, then the engine room. That door in front of us leads to the spine conduit, same goes for the inboard door up at the bow; you get to the nose turret bay through the spine conduit. The door just up ahead leads to the for'ards cross-spine corridor, and the one right by the engine room firewall leads to the aft cross-spine corridor. We're level with the ship's main structural member right now; just the other side of that wall there's a two hundred ton triple-beam ladder frame. That's what stops her concertinaing herself when you punch superluminal. B-deck cabin 8 is Tara's room. C'mon, we're gonna head across the for'ards cross-spine corridor now." The door led into a short passage with a floor that humped up abruptly in two places and a ceiling that came down in the middle; with a rather unnecessary "Mind yer heads." Bruce led them across and into another fore-aft corridor.

"Right, that door right in front of us leads to the port for'ards staircase. That leads down to C-deck and up to A-deck. Next door for'ards is the loos, then the shower block, then access to the keelgun supply lift, then cabins B6, B4 and B2. Aft of here there's the mess hall which we use as the ship's living room, then the galley, then the starboards aft stairs up to A-deck, then more of the engine room. C'mon upstairs."

Bruce led them into the port for'ards stairs, and up, leading via yet another pressure door to a fore-and-aft hallway at the top. The hallway doglegged abruptly right in front of the stairs, and again further forwards, once again with plenty doors.

"This is A-deck corridor. The door opposite leads to the A-deck escape bay, that's the other way out if the shit really hits the fan. The big oblong central room the corridor doglegs around here is the upper turret bay, that's where the turret on the roof retracts to. Up for'ards we've got the keelgun breech conduit on the port side, and the A-deck airlock to starboard along with A-deck cabins 1 to 4. Aft we've got A-deck cabins 5 to 18, the brig, the aft stairs off both sides at the end, and the A-deck part of the engine room." Bruce turned for'ards. "And of course, right up at the bows, we've got Alice's personal empire."

"Aw crikey bro, quit ribbing me." Alice grumbled. Bruce smirked at her as they arrived at yet another pressure door. This one bore a sign reading:

CAUTION!

BRIDGE UNSTABLE

IN HIGH WINDS!

"And this," he said, flinging the door open, "Is the wheelhouse."

It looked like the cockpit of a large and unimaginably dilapidated aircraft. There were a total of twelve seats arrayed around at varied control stations, each clad in battered leather with foam lining poking from the rents. The controls were obviously cobbled together from junk; the floor bore a thick layer of detritus, mainly flattened beercans and trod-in crisp packets, but including drifts of dog ends. A cannabis plant grew from a pile of filth in one back corner; the walls sported patches of moss. Many dials and readout panels were yawning holes in the dashboards; several probably-important screens were blown out, and even the control yokes had several extra switches duct-taped into place.

Alice cleared the left-hand front seat with an easy swing over the centrally-mounted bank of throttles, and sprawled in the seat with a sigh, her left hand automatically landing on the yokes. From the clear section around the rudder pedals, this was the pilot's seat.

"I thought the pilot used the right seat and the co-pilot used the left?" Ron asked, obviously puzzled.

"I'm left-handed." Alice remarked. "The controls are duplicated in the two positions, it's just easier for me to use left seat."

"I think," Hermione said, "The most amazing thing about this old ship is that it works at all."

**End, Chapter 7.**

AN – Once again, technobabble tried to take over the world. The Blink Dog is going to be a rather prominent feature of the story, especially when it comes to the summertime plots, which is why I've paid this much attention to her at this stage in the game. I've drawn up deck plans; I'll post them once I get around to getting somewhere to post them. I wrote the descriptions above based off said deck plans, but I'm not sure how clear they are. The DX-32 as I've imagined and drawn it is a substantial piece of equipment. 400 feet doesn't sound like much when you say it in a hurry, but that's far bigger than a Boeing 747 or even an Antinov An-225; it's big enough to make the biggest aircraft mankind has ever constructed look like a Cessna.

The Imperial Atlantean Marines are supposed to be something halfway between the Space Marines (Warhammer 40,000) and Imperial stormtroopers (Star Wars) just in case you need styling prompts.

The reason for my updating delay was an eventful week. Firstly there was my 29th birthday (27th April, incidentally the day I finished writing this chapter) which did of course lead to a gift in the form of a copy of Stalker: Shadow of Chernobyl. It's a fucking good game, which has led to certain levels of distraction as I work my way further into the Zone.

Also in the past week I've been a bit bummed as my beloved (but thoroughly dead) Honda ratbike has finally gone to a better place, or rather the scrapyard. I salvaged the sheep skull off the rear mudguard and the wolf-head magnet off the fuel tank, both of which will find their way onto my next vehicle.

See you all next time,

Doghead Out.


	8. Chapter 8

**This ain't no self-insert fic.**

**This ain't no slash fic neither.**

**This is Top Dog.**

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After the rigmarole with the Blink Dog, the rest of the weekend passed quickly for Hermione between settling in and getting to know the assorted people she found herself in the midst of. She rapidly became friends with Michelle Chaos (it was hard not to like the perky catgirl) and Fleggitt (who had a superb sense of humour as well as a posh accent) and she began to get used to the constant slightly threatening black-clad presence that was Harry. By Sunday evening she was no longer doing double-takes when she saw the blatantly non-human students such as the assorted Kenti and Frognorfians.

And then, of course, Monday came and it was time to begin classes. Hermione and Tara were both out of bed promptly, and after a cursory comb of Tara's fur the two roommates made their way down to the great hall for breakfast, once again joining the Walker twins and Harry, this time with the silent, sullen presence of S'tarak'hai looming over one end of the table and exchanging nasty looks with Bruce. Once again, she found herself stuck in a seat beside Harry.

"So what've we got first today?" Alice asked, making a valiant attempt to break the strained silence.

"Something calling itself Introductory Magecraft." Harry said. "What do you bet it'd be better titled 'What you've Let Yourself In For: the Brief Version'?"

"In other words it'll probably consist of crap-cakes like that snot-nosed little blonde punk over there showing off the fact they've been training since they could talk while the mundane-born students are getting thrown in at the deep end." S'tarak'hai growled.

"Let 'em have their fun, give it a few months and the significantly higher IQ and grade of aura possessed by us mudbloods will start to show." Harry said, waving it off. "Let's face facts, it don't matter how pure your blood is, if you insist on fucking your cousins for enough generations you are destined to become a shambling inbred retard."

A grin flickered momentarily across S'tarak'hai's heavy-jawed face; the sullen look returned, but there was now a glint of humour in his catlike eyes.

"Healthy mind, healthy body." He remarked.

There was a clunk and scrape as someone put a chair down beside S'tarak'hai; a tray was carefully placed on the table, and the someone (Luna) seated herself beside the huge catman. Today, Luna was wearing a snot green Morticia Addams dress and a very battered denim jacket. Her hair was out of it's usual multiple ponytails, revealing what a truly immense quantity it actually was; she had to be careful not to step on it with her currently bare feet.

"Hi, guys." She said.

"Grmph." Katarina remarked, resting her head in S'tarak'hai's lap.

"Hello, beautiful." He said, running his hand through the ruff of fur at the back of the tigress's neck.

"Morning, Luna." Harry remarked. "So anyway, 'introductory magecraft' this morning, and this afternoon… oh boy, alchemy. Seems we get to see if this Snape character is as bad as reports claim."

"This could get awkward." S'tarak'hai remarked. "Standing orders concerning Severus Mercurio Snape are the same as concerning all Death Eater terrorists; shoot to kill."

"Conduct in neutral systems." Tara remarked.

"Understood." S'tarak'hai growled. "Problem is, intelligence sources mark him as the man who created the toxins used in the Ninth of Dal plot."

Tara gasped, her wings twitching a bit.

"You're telling me," Harry said, sitting forwards, "That son-of-a-bitch is the fucking animal who tried to poison Queen Rialia?"

S'tarak'hai nodded grimly.

"Every time I think of it I find myself reaching for my gun." He growled. "I would dearly love to _smoke_ the fucker, but then I remember he deserves a _lot_ worse than a quick death."

"Here's a plan." Harry told him. "Alchemy deals with what? All sorts of interesting compounds that can turn toxic, explode, spray dye over a wide area, fill a room with snot-like orange gunk, unleash the barbaric spaghetti, and so forth. I've checked the syllabus. There isn't a single potion in the first-year course work that won't react in some highly spectacular manner to being mixed wrongly. With the right combination of ingredients, you can turn any cauldron into a time-bomb."

"Are you suggesting we sabotage our own potions?" Tara asked.

Harry shook his head, his grin becoming outright evil.

"No, Tarai. I am _fast_. I'm going to sabotage the potions of people like, for example, that blonde son-of-a-terrorist over there, or his duo of Neanderthal bookends. Maybe that girl with a face like a lunar landscape who's drooling all over blondie. I am going to play 'fuck with the Death Munchkins' and see just how much of a mess I can influence them to make. Trust me, getting a cauldron to go off like a hand grenade is simplicity itself, and it's just as simple to get it to go off at a specific point in time."

"I like the way you think." Tara said, a smirk spreading across her face.

"I've got your back, Johnson." S'tarak'hai growled, nodding.

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**Disclaimer: Warning! Very literal Draco-bashing ahead! And a bit of Snape-bashing while I'm at it! Bash, bash, bash!**

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**Top Dog: Enter the Fnords**

**Book 1: Harry Johnson and the Headmaster's Socks.**

**A Doghead13 / United Galaxies fanfic**

**Written & produced by Calum J 'Doghead13' Wallace**

**Brought to you by Hairy Scottish Git Productions, GMBH**

**This is not a drill.**

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**Chapter 8: The Suffering of Snape and Malfoy.**

**(In which the great pissing match begins)**

A swarm of over a hundred first-year magecraft students resulted in one yelling mob. Hermione didn't have any idea how one tutor was supposed to keep control of the horde, and suspected that things were going to get chaotic.

Selecting a seat alongside the Blink Dog crew, Harry, Ron and Luna, she put her kit on the desk and waited, watching bemusedly as the volume increased and nobody else seemed to settle down.

"This is a madhouse." She commented.

"And the lunatics are running the asylum." Luna agreed, staring fixedly at Bruce's left ear.

"How in the fuck is anyone supposed to think in here?" Harry asked.

A massive BANG from the front of the classroom rather effectively shut everyone up.

McGonagall was standing there holding a smoking 12-guage double-barrel shotgun, with which she had just discharged a pair of blanks at the ceiling.

"Now that I have your attention," she said, putting the shotgun down on her desk, "Welcome to your first class in our fine Collegium." She waved her hand, and a list of names appeared in the air; one of these names was glowing red while the others were blue. As she frowned, the red one went blue as a large, Neanderthal-looking boy came bolting into the room in a mad panic.

"Ah, Mr Goyle." McGonagall remarked. "I will let your tardiness slide today, but I will become annoyed if you are late in future. Is that clear, young man?"

"Yes'm. Sorry'm. Hadta go take a dump." Goyle said, wildly nodding his head.

"I see. Take a seat, and we shall begin."

Goyle scrambled into the nearest available seat, grinned sheepishly at Tara (who he had landed beside) and started fishing his gear out of his pack.

Luna retargeted her incredibly blank stare on the back of Goyle's neck since he was now blocking her line of sight to Bruce's ear.

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Over the next ten minutes, McGonagall ran them through a simple series of incantations, which she described as designed to judge potential magic power. Called 'Lumos', this spell was exceedingly simple, and everyone managed to get their glowing ball of light in their hand by the end of the ten minutes, though it was quite obvious that about half the class already knew this one.

Each got a different colour; Tara's, for example, was a ferocious-looking electric blue, Hermione's was sunflower yellow, Bruce's was snot green, Harry's kept changing colour and Luna's was an unnerving not-quite-blue, not-quite-pink colour that was sincerely disturbing to look at since it didn't seem to be at all possible.

"Sky blue pink." Luna said, admiring it.

McGonagall checked that everyone had managed, looked disturbed at Luna's light, looked sincerely shocked at Harry's light and proceeded.

"There you go." She said. "Your most utterly basic possible spell. The Lumos spell used to frequently be used, along with Create Rats, to test for basic aptitude for magecraft. Of course, we have much more modern methods, but that's by the by; it still remains the single simplest known spell. It is a simple extension of one's will and magical flux, projected onto the physical plane in the form of a fuzzy ball of light. Interestingly, the colours of one's first attempt at the Lumos spell usually bear some indication of one's specific thrust in the magical arts, though I have to admit I have no idea what the heck that weird colour Miss Lovegood got means."

"It's sky blue pink." Luna remarked matter-of-factly. "I've wanted to see what it looks like for absolutely ages."

"Errr, yes, very good. I'll leave it up to all of you to find out what portent your own colour holds; I expect at least two hundred words from each of you on said colour. Especially you, Miss Lovegood."

Luna thought about that for a moment, nodded, smiled and resumed staring blankly at the back of Goyle's neck, which was starting to unnerve him.

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McGonagall spent the following hour drilling them all in a variety of similarly simple spells, including the ubiquitous 'create rats' (Luna ended up creating a duck-billed platypus) and the equally ubiquitous fireball (more shenanigans from Luna, this time a fireball in the shape of Pac-man which proceeded to zoom round the room gobbling everyone else's fireballs then, on completing it's circuit, it emitted a loud belch, muttered 'Oh, why bother?' and vanished) though it was again very apparent that this was old ground for around half of the class.

The she abruptly changed the subject.

"Now, who here has a familiar?" McGonagall asked. Two hands shot up; they belonged to Draco Malfoy and Luna Lovegood; Harry idly raised his hand a moment later.

"And what nature would your familiars be?"

Draco smugly indicated the slightly younger girl who'd been following him around and who was now kneeling beside his desk.

"She's half-New Atlantean, half Asian human." He stated, sounding very pleased with himself and sticking his nose in the air.

"Killer doll." Harry said, resting a hand on Carla's head. "Custom-configured, of course. No I'm not going to tell you her configuration."

Luna blinked bemusedly.

"A nine-year-old Siberian tigress." She said. "Her name's Katarina, she's the daughter of two of my uncle's tigers, Lenin and Yuria. Uncle Dan breeds tigers, you see. For zoos and stuff, mostly, though he's working to help the World Wildlife Fund rebuild Earth's tiger population. Katarina's the type that has been genetically engineered to be domestic, right? Well, anyway, Uncle Dan found out you can bind a tiger as two kinds of familiar at the same time, and seeing as how Dad was a bit worried about things he decided I needed a bit of protection, so he bound Katarina to me, see? Well, before that he got half a million New Aussie dollars worth of nanocybernetics put in her, but I'm not sure what that means."

"Holy _shit_." McGonagall finally said.

Draco glowered at Luna; his moment of triumph was wrecked.

"You can fish for attention later." Luna told the tigress, pointing authoritively at the floor beside her desk. Katarina grumphed and ambled over, settling herself beside her mistress and idly batting at Luna's hair with an immense paw; Luna started stroking the tigress with a spare hand while staring fixedly at the end of McGonagall's nose.

McGonagall came over and admired the tigress for a bit, receiving a lick on the nose from a tongue like a dishcloth for her troubles, then proceeded to thoroughly quiz the class on the pros and cons of familiars.

"There are four basic kinds of familiar bond." She explained. "All types share some similarities; the familiar's life-force and soul are removed from their body and placed in the master, meaning that if the master dies, the familiar drops dead on the spot. A familiar gets the life-force they need to live fed to them on an as-needed basis from the master's increased life-force. They'll stay the same, the master will be stronger, faster, tougher and less liable to ill health. Originally, there was only one type of familiar bond; what we now call the hand familiar, developed in the early days of the Atlantean Empire as a method to guarantee the compliance of an unwilling wife in an arranged marriage. For all familiars, the master's voice is an irresistible command, described as being like the voice of God, but in a hand familiar that's even stronger – the link is also telepathic, meaning VOG level commands can be issued remotely by the master without the aid of any equipment. The other three kinds were developed over the following couple of thousand years as the Atlantean Empire's magical culture grew and developed. Second developed is the booster bond, in which the master can tap into and make use of the familiar's thaumatic aura. Third came the focus bond, in which the master can cast spells through the familiar. And last off, there's the storage bond, in which the master can cast a spell into the familiar, to be released from the familiar's body at some stage in the future – maybe even years later. Old Atlanteans can be made into any three types of familiar at the same time; once set it's fixed. Some other species – such, apparently, as tigers – can be made into two or more types of familiar at the same go, but this is extremely unusual. One master can have any number of familiars; the highest number on the record is seventeen thousand two hundred and eighty-six, held by the Clanlord of the Amerai Clan Hakkenan, Sengoku Toriyama."

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As the class came to a close, Draco Malfoy was in an extremely bad mood.

His moment of triumph had been wrecked by the actions of Luna Lovegood and a certain tigress. He couldn't go after Luna; she was under the protection of a cyborged tigress the size of a large motorbike. His familiar happened to stifle a cough at that moment, giving him a target to vent on.

He rammed his finger into her left eye, drawing a howl of pain, then stormed off. The unfortunate girl shuffled after him under the influence of his furious yanks on her leash, clutching her bleeding eye and silently crying.

Harry stared after them for a long moment.

"Son. Of. A. **Bitch**." he ground out. "Cowabunga." There was a snap and hiss; bars of solid-seeming humming white light erupted from the metal-bodied flashlight-looking things that had appeared in his hands.

"Stand down, Johnson." S'tarak'hai growled.

"Fucking shove it, R'hara'tath." Harry snarled. "I've got a worthless fuck to exterminate."

"Stand down." S'tarak'hai barked. "You trying to get yourself busted, man?"

The beams of light vanished with a sucking sort of hiss.

"I can't just fucking stand here and do fucking nothing." Harry stated.

"Well I don't know about you, but I'm going to sic Fred and George on the bastard." Ron remarked.

"That was totally unmellow and nasty, man." Luna remarked, drifting over with a puzzled frown directed the way Draco had gone. "I'm going to Nerf that nasty dude every time I see him."

Harry frowned; he opened his hands and the 'flashlights' vanished.

"Meet you in the Great Hall. Don't sweat it, R'hara'tath – I won't go too far."

And, with that, he sprinted off.

"I like Luna's idea." Tara said. "Or maybe we can get paintball guns."

"Maybe." Hermione quietly agreed. She currently felt a bit ill.

"What exactly are you five plotting?" McGonagall asked from just behind her.

"Nothing!" Ron said hastily.

McGonagall looked disappointed. "Oh. Oh well, what a pity, I could have sworn you were plotting to Nerf Draco Malfoy into a quivering heap." She pulled a Nerf gun out of her robes, looked at it and sighed theatrically. "I guess I won't need this after all."

"Er?" Hermione said.

McGonagall nodded calmly at Hermione.

"I," she said, "Do not condone cruelty. I don't usually condone pranks, but I shall turn a blind eye when you youngsters deal with Mr Malfoy."

"I've got a plan for how we start." Ron said. "We Nerf Malfoy at dinner. Everyone bring Nerf guns, and as much spare Nerf as you can scrounge up, OK? I want him Nerfed so thoroughly he can't think."

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Draco Malfoy was storming down the corridor when someone tripped him up.

"Hey fuckballs." That someone snarled. "Pick the fucking bones out of this."

And then that someone started hitting Draco a lot.

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On arriving at lunch, the group found Harry waiting for them. He had blood on his boots and knuckles, and looked annoyed.

"What'd you do to Malfoy?" S'tarak'hai asked, jerking a thumb in the direction of the blood purist corner. "It looks like you stove a door in with his face."

"Nothing much." Harry said. "He's still breathing."

Peering in the indicated direction, Hermione saw that Draco looked a bit like he'd been hit by a truck; his entire face seemed to be one big bruise, large patches of his hair had been ripped out, and from the painful way he was moving it wasn't just his face that had been smacked around.

She made another mental promise to herself that she'd very carefully avoid annoying Harry Johnson.

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After lunch, it was directly to the alchemy classroom with them. Draco Malfoy was notable in his absence.

This turned out to be a low, cramped, badly-ventilated room in the very bowels of the castle, with desks too close together and at the wrong height, uncomfortable seats, bad lighting and no safety equipment.

"Gods, this is gonna be a bucket of fucking laughs." Bruce muttered.

"Quit moaning, Chief." Tara stated, unearthing her kit. "I've read all the first-year alchemy stuff, and it's simple. In fact, I know better versions of most of the potions in this stupid book." She banged her textbook against her desk.

Harry snorted quietly to himself as he assembled his toolkit. Several people took careful note of how cheap-and-nasty his gear was; most of it was in fact damaged.

Then Severus Snape, the hook-nosed grease-haired one himself, came sweeping into the room.

"Well. So, another gaggle of disparate elements. You have the distinct fortune to be about to learn the most mysterious of crafts from me, Professor Severus Snape. You are here to learn the myriad and subtle ways, the intriguing complexities, of alchemy." Snape paused for effect. "As there is little in the way of athame-work here, many of you will hardly believe this is magecraft. I don't expect any of you will truly understand the beauty of the softly simmering cauldron with its shimmering fumes, the delicate power of liquids that creep through the veins, bewitching the mind, ensnaring the senses... I can teach you how to bottle fame, brew glory, and even stopper death. If, that is, and I find the possibility sincerely unlikely, you are not as big a bunch of dunderheads as I usually have the distinct misfortune to have to teach."

There was a long silence as Snape glared at each student in turn. Lastly, he turned his glower on Harry.

"Mr _**Johnson**_." He sneered. "Our resident _celebrity_… disgusting. Let's see if you're good for anything… What would I get if I added powdered root of asphodel to an infusion of wormwood?"

"Draught of Living Death." Harry instantly replied. "Useful stuff."

Snape glared at him for a moment. "And where would you look if I were to ask you to find a beozar?"

"Belly of a goat." Harry grunted.

"And what might it be useful for?"

"All-purpose antitoxin." Harry said. "Works for most poisons. Of course, for really serious shit like basilisk venom you'll need something stronger."

"Such as?"

"Phoenix tears, or about five gallons of medical nanites."

"What is the difference between wolfsbane, monkshood and aconite?"

"None, they're all the same plant."

"And how is wolfsbane used in hunting werewolves?" Snape asked.

"It's not." Harry stated. "After all, 'hunting werewolves' is a very good way to get every Amerai Clan in the galaxy down on you like a ton of bricks. Sure, wolfsbane interferes with an Amerai's shapeshifting and regeneration, but that is of course why it's strictly controlled throughout Clanspace, and that includes here on Earth. Nah, for capping a werewolf what you really need is a chainsword and reflexes like a ferret on pixie sticks."

"And what might be the other uses of wolfsbane?"

"Aside from being the active ingredient of wolfsbane potion, I neither know nor care." Harry said.

"Hmm, so your celebrity status isn't such an indicator of competence." Snape said, grinning like a shark. "Ten points from Gryffindor, and I expect sixteen thousand words on the properties and uses of wolfsbane by this time next week." Snape wheeled and marched over to the blackboard and the varied blood-purist kids obediently tittered.

Harry murmured "You know what they say about overoptimistic expectations you fucking wanker." But he was quiet enough that only Hermione and Carla actually heard him.

"Today," Snape declared, "We shall be concocting a potion that counteracts boils. The recipe is on page ten of your textbooks; you have thirty minutes. Get on with it."

Draco entered and limped over to a spare seat; he was thickly swathed in bandages and did not look very happy. Snape didn't bat an eyelid.

As the class proceeded to try to learn, Snape proceeded to swan around the room doling out snide remarks, deducting points, and handing out detentions, until he finally arrived at Tara's desk. She was working with the smooth precision of someone who obviously knew exactly what they were doing.

"You are using incorrect quantities." He stated.

"I know a variation of that recipe that works somewhat-"

"Two weeks detention for playing the fool." Snape snapped.

"Very well, S'rai'ath Snape." Tara said, demurely inclining her head.

Harry emitted the most incredible guffaw anyone in the room had ever heard. It faded back and forth across the line to sniggering, and it lasted nearly half a minute before he managed to stifle it; at the same time, S'tarak'hai let out a bark of Kenti coughing-laughter, and most of the other Kenti in the room snorted or otherwise stifled bursts of laughter.

Snape had spent the entirety of Harry's guffaw glaring at said luminary.

"Are you making fun of me, Mr _**Johnson**_?" he snarled.

"I had something stuck in my throat." Harry said. Snape went a very interesting colour.

"Ingratiate. Fifty points from Gryffindor for answering me back." Snape spun round and slapped Tara's cauldron off her desk. "Purposefully creating a mess, Miss T'rash'gal? That will be a further two weeks detention."

Someone had at that moment had enough. That someone was S'tarak'hai R'hara'tath.

He drove his knee into the underside of his desk with so much force it punched clean through and catapulted the cauldron into the side of Snape's head with an audible _whang_. Then he stood up, crushed what was left of the desk into a bundle of splinters, drove his fist through the blackboard, picked up Draco's cauldron and placed it upside-down upon Snape's head, then walked out. There was a short silence followed by an immense crash from outside the room, then the sound of large booted feet storming away.

"Cat-boy ain't a happy bunny." Harry remarked, obviously amused.

"Fifty points from Gryffindor." Snape snarled, obviously a trifle concussed as he starting trying to get the half-made potion out of his greasy hair.

"Yes yes, whatever makes you feel big." Harry stated. "Little girly man."

"Two weeks detention for that remark, Mr P- ahh, _**Johnson**_." Snape stated, smirking at Harry. "You'll be spending your evenings cleaning toilets."

Snape had never expected a student to dare sneer at him. But there it was, spread widely across Harry's face as he said, "No I won't."

"You **what**?" Snape growled.

"Are you deaf as well as a fucking moron, **S'rai'ath** Snape?" he asked. Tara dissolved into a coughing fit of laughter. "I said, no I won't. That's what janitors are for; I've got better things to do than bugger around in the bogs. Now, I'd like to make one thing abundantly fucking clear. I'm a mercenary gunman, not a fucking potion maker. If I want potions, I do what any sane person does; I go and fucking buy them. I'm only taking this course because it's a required subject until third year, and yes I did give the beardy bastard an earful about wasting my fucking time. It's obvious you've got something against me despite the fact we've never met in our fucking lives before, so how about this. You get some fucking maturity and I don't blow your greasy fucking head off. Fuck sake, you're old enough to be my fucking father, and I'll remember to thank God that's not the case when I say my prayers tonight."

"I will not be spoken to in that tone. Fifty points from Gryffindor and detention for the next month." Snape snapped.

"Give me all the fucking detention you want, _S'rai'ath_ Snape, I won't show up." Harry informed him, once again causing Tara to burst into laughter. "You see, I've got better things to do than take shit from a greaseball who doesn't understand when someone isn't playing his fucking kindergarten mind-game. I'm a working man and I've got a job to do, so just stay the Hell off my case or I'll drill you so full of holes they'll be able to bury you in a fucking matchbox. You got my drift, dorkula?"

"I'll see you expelled for this." Snape snarled.

Harry laughed in his face. "HAHAHA! That's what you think, _**S'rai'ath**_ Snape." Tara cracked up again. "For some reason, Dumblefuck needs me here to the tune of seventy thousand New Aussie dollars a day, and on top of that I'm being paid twice the amount by someone I'm being paid not to identify. It's one of the sweetest deals I've ever been handed; the only flies are having to share airspace with you and that little rat-faced blonde fuck Malfoy. You can try all you want and I guarantee you'll still see my smirking face at the breakfast table tomorrow. Oh, and feel free to de-point me. Everyone knows Dumbledork's already decided Slytherin is going to win, so nobody gives a shit about the points system. Anyway, I gotta go do some vital gun maintenance, keep my babies sweetly in tune. See you next week, fuckwad."

And with that parting insult, Harry triggered his watch. The Fenrir appeared in it's usual drawn-the-wireframes manner; he swung aboard, booted the kickstart and rode the enormous motorbike out of the classroom, leaving Snape coughing and spluttering from the cloud of tyre smoke and exhaust fumes. Ron shot up like a jack-in-the-box and went running after Harry, as did Hermione for a rather different reason; Tara calmly retrieved her pack, paused to spit at Snape, and followed them.

"A hundred and fifty points each from Gryffindor for those four leaving before I dismissed class, and a hundred from Johnson for using a motor vehicle indoors." Snape barked.

"Gryffindor only had thirty-five points before this farce of a lecture and points can't go into the negative." Artemis remarked, stood up, shouldered his book bag, and walked out.

Then Pansy Parkinson's cauldron erupted. A cloud of bright green jelly-like stinking muck was projected from its mouth with extreme force, hitting the ceiling, bouncing back and coating half the room.

"Out." Snape ground out.

"Sir, do-" Draco started.

"OUT! OUT! FIFTY POINTS FROM GRYFFINDOR! EVERYONE GET THE HELL OUT OF MY LECTURE HALL!"

Abandoning the room in a rush, the class found something that stopped them dead in their tracks.

As well as an arrow-straight line of burnt rubber up the middle of the hall, there was a huge dent in the opposite wall, which they knew for damn sure had solid bedrock behind it.

A dent, complete with spider-webbed radial cracks, with a hole the shape of a sizeable fist at the centre.

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Twenty minutes later Harry, Carla, Tara, S'tarak'hai, Hermione and Ron were clustered in a corner in the Gryffindor hangout. Harry had his boots up on the pool table and was smoking; Tara was sitting a discreet distance from S'tarak'hai, who was being silent and sullen once again.

"What was funny about what Tara said?" Ron asked.

Harry cracked up laughing. Tara looked smug. S'tarak'hai briefly smiled.

"It was a very subtle insult." Harry said, then dissolved into another cackle fit.

"What? But I thought it was like being polite in Kentare?" Ron asked.

Harry shook his head, managing to get the laughter back under control; Tara gently slapped her forehead.

"So many perfectly intelligent people miss that one." She said. "What I guess you thought I said was 'Seraieth'. That _is_ polite. Really old-world, but still polite, and, well, it's kinda the basis of the oldest Kentare insult on the list."

"What she actually called greaseball was 'S'rai'ath'." Harry said.

"Uh, okay. So, uh, right?"

"Right, and it's an Old Kentare pun." Harry explained. "It means something like 'head in the trees'. She called him an idiot, to his face_, and he didn't pick up on it_."

Tara smirked. "I know I shouldn't take advantage of monolingual people, but how can I resist when it's so _fun_?"

"This gives me an evil scheme." Bruce said. "Let's see how long it takes greaseball to cotton on we aren't calling him 'honourable sir' when we call him 'S'rai'ath'."

"Your-"

"-Daughter-"

"-Is-"

"-Awesome!" Fred and George twin-spoke, arriving on the scene.

Harry raised his eyebrows. "What's she been getting herself into this time?"

The duo of pranksters settled themselves on the sofa around him.

"Well, you'll be familiar with the way Snape conducts class, right? Punishing anyone who isn't a Death Munchkin?" George asked

"Death Munchkin?" Harry asked.

"It's what we call the pureblood-supremacist morons." Fred explained.

"You know, the wannabe Death Munchers." George added.

"I think I like the term 'Death Munchkin'. Mind if I use it?"

"Sure." The twins chorused.

"Right. Anyway, I got the picture today."

"Well, not only has she turned History from the worst class in the school to absolutely _cool_, your daughter's been doing the same, but the other way round! The Death Munchkins can't open their mouths without losing points, and she gives all the points Snape leeched back to the other houses! For the first time in ages, there's a chance Slytherin won't win the House Cup!" The twins ranted.

Harry chuckled.

"She's probably doing it just to get a kick from throwing a cat among the pigeons." He said. "Setsuna's got a warped sense of humour. She's a good kid."

"Well, as long as we keep getting to see that comical tasting-their-own-medicine look on Death Munchkin faces she's fine by us!"

Harry smiled slightly.

"I'll be sure to pass on the vote of confidence." He said.

"Cool, thanks. Now, did you really sabotage Parkinson's cauldron so it sprayed stinking green jelly all over half the room including Snape?" the twins asked.

Harry smiled sagely.

"Let's just say that adding eye of newt to half-made boil relieving potion can have truly intriguing results." He said.

"It was _awesome!_" Neville said. "It soaked half the room, and totally splattered all the Death Munchkins. And you should have seen what that huge Kenti did – he kicked through his desk so his cauldron bounced off the side of Snape's head, then turned that Malfoy guy's cauldron upside down on top of Snape's head! And Harry rode his motorbike out of there!"

"It was in fact exactly what I'd planned; total and utter chaos." Harry said. "He crossed a line when he started giving a certain attractive Kenti his shit. So I told the stupid fucker what I think of him."

"You must be pretty good at alchemy if you knew what to do to make all that green stuff come flying out a cauldron." Neville remarked.

Harry snorted.

"I got interested in alchemy a while back. Passed my alchemy NEWT exam two years ago; that's why I called it a waste of time."

"I guess you _do_ know what wolfsbane is good for then." Hermione said.

Harry snorted.

"Of course I know what wolfsbane does." He said. "I just figured that stupid greaseball wasn't going to stop asking stupid questions until I failed to answer one."

"So, what _does_ wolfsbane do?" Hermione asked.

"It's a sedative, and poisonous in high doses." Harry said. "It's also a hallucinogen, it used to be used in pagan ritual 'flying potions', and it has some really weird effects when it gets into an Amerai's system. If it gets into an Amerai intravenously it fouls up their ability to shapeshift and regenerate by inhibiting or overloading the production of most of the varied hormones involved in the process of shapeshifting, and stopping damage signals reaching the Amerai's stew cells. That's why putting it on a bullet is just plain nasty – it results in the poor bastard receiving a hideous wound which makes them temporarily unable to heal. The effects if taken orally are markedly different and much more interesting. First off, in about one in ten weres it acts as an extremely powerful aphrodisiac. And secondly, it only mucks with specific hormones; it causes one hormone gland to throw a massive dose into the Am's system, and inhibits the production of another. That's what makes the stuff useful in medicine. There's a rare birth defect found in about one in a million Amerai, mostly those born while their mothers were under the effects of wolfsbane; it's called tidal phasic rage disorder. Basically, the poor moondog goes into a berserk killing frenzy at the full moon, due to malfunction of two hormone glands; one closing up, the other hitting off a massive dose, it's definitely something to do with tidal effects, a moon less than two thirds the size of Earth's moon doesn't set a moondog off. It just so happens that wolfsbane stimulates the hormone gland TPRD inhibits while inhibiting the hormone gland TPRD stimulates. The stuff won't completely stop TRPD throwing the moondog into the war form and driving them temporarily out of their mind, but it does mean they act more like a heavily stoned junkie than a berserk killer. That's partly because wolfsbane's third effect when it gets into an Amerai's digestive tract is to send them on one truly impressive trip."

"Er, what?" Hermione asked, shocked.

Harry chuckled and pulled a plastic water bottle out of his jacket. It was full of a viscous honey-looking substance. He placed the bottle on the table.

"A litre of undiluted wolfsbane potion." He said, opening the top and thus releasing a pungent coffee-like odour. "This shit is 98 pure. Diluted to medical concentration, there's enough her for seven and a half thousand doses; for a non-regenerating species such as a human, a medical dose would be enough to rapidly prove lethal. A medical dose is also enough to send a shapeshifter on a trip, and they'll be stoned out their mind for hours once they come down off the trip; two hundred CC of the undiluted potion is moving into overdose territory. The duration isn't down to how much you take; the trip just gets more and more all-encompassing as the dose increases. A medical dose just gives you a comfortable sense of unreality, makes it difficult to bother moving and you get this sort of shimmer effect on your vision. A couple CC and you're seeing space bats. Two hundred and you can't see much of anything because all the pretty swirly colours get in the way. Take the whole thing and you'd probably die; if it didn't kill you it'd be a one-way ticket to bat country, even for the toughest werewolf in the galaxy. This stuff is beyond powerful. It's illegal as all get-out, of course."

"So… what've you got it for?" Hermione asked, sincerely freaked out.

Harry smirked, stuck his finger into the bottle, and held it up with a thick coating of honey-like gunge.

"This is enough to get a werewolf tripping their bollocks off for three or four hours, and it'll get them mellow as that Luna girl for most of ten hours. Note how it smells like coffee; well, if I put a good-size blob in the coffee maker, that could for example get a target's guards so smashed they can't tell what way's down, never mind who is or isn't an intruder and that the screaming choking noises coming from the direction of their boss needs investigating, or even important things like what they are. Plus," and he stuck his gunked finger in his mouth, "It's the galaxy's most entertaining recreational drug."

"You're cuckoo, man." Fred said.

Harry frowned and looked at his finger.

"Did I just stick my finger in that and lick it?" he asked.

"Yes." S'tarak'hai told him.

"Oh good, I'd have hated to think there were really purple fish crawling all over your head. I'll be in my room tripping my ass off if anyone needs me." He said, lidding and pocketing the bottle; he popped a piece of chewing gum into his mouth and grabbed Carla's leash.

"Nookie fest." She remarked sideon to Hermione, then followed the tugging.

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The next morning, a poster had appeared on the Gryffindor notice board.

It showed a life-sized photograph of Snape's sneering face, surmounted by 'It only costs NAU$20,000 to see bullet holes here!' with an arrow scrawled pointing to the bridge of Snape's nose, while the fine print beneath read, 'Suffering from a problematic alchemy tutor? I will blow his greasy head off for the low, low price of only twenty thousand New Australian dollars! Ask for Harry Johnson in the Gryffindor hangout weekday evenings. Other persons blown to shit by arrangement; offer subject to me reacting explosively if you ask me to kill someone I like. Only unmarked used notes without sequential serial numbers accepted. In God we trust, all others pay cash.'

-- End Chapter --

AN – Huh, wasn't expecting to finish this before chapter 6 of Biker ½ Rewrite. Oh well. And it turned out to be the biggest chapter yet. Oh well; this was the first place I could stop without wrecking the way I want it to flow. Thinking about it, it's actually kinda good that this is progressing faster than Biker ½; the events of Biker ½ book 1 are concurrent with the events of Enter the Fnords book 3, so Harry's got a bit of catching up to do.

I actually quite like Snape, there's a plot-type reason why he's being such an over-exaggerated bastard, but it won't come out for quite a while. The same goes for Draco's behaviour, but I'm less than fond of the little blonde asshole and it'll take even longer to come out.

Re the Kentare: I have a file containing a couple hundred Kentare words, all made up of course. They are complete and utter gibberish, but very carefully constructed gibberish.

Seraieth something like 'honourable sir'. It's similar to the '-san' honourific from Japanese.

S'rai'ath means something like 'head in the trees' (Forest + Head + Down) It's a term for an idiot, and a pun on 'Seraieth'. Tara was being sincerely sarcastic.

I don't know if the 'Death Munchkins' term is original. I got 'Death Munchers' from Jeconais's 'This Means War', and as I often refer to annoying small children as 'bloody Munchkins' the next step was fairly obvious.

The description of the physiological effects of wolfsbane in a shapeshifter's body is based on the descriptions of the physiological effects of drugs in the varied National Geographic drug articles I've read over the years.

Harry referenced three things that I know of in his description of wolfsbane potion trips; the space bats comment came from the Fast Show, and the bat country remark was of course referring to Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. I got the swirly colours thing from one of Greg Sharp's omakes.

The way Harry stuck a load of the potion in his mouth then pretty much immediately started tripping is inspired by the actions of Detritus the Troll in the Discworld book 'Feet of Clay'.

And lastly, the 'in God we trust, all others pay cash' line is taken from the biker gang cum delivery company in Ghost in the Shell 2: ManMachine Interface.

See you all next time,

Doghead Out.


	9. Chapter 9

**This ain't no self-insert fic.**

**This ain't no slash fic neither.**

**This is Top Dog.**

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Harry was not present at dinner, nor was there any sign of him in the hangout afterwards; there were also suspicious noises coming from his room when Hermione headed up to go to bed. What was going on in there was quite obvious; Hermione didn't know many things that involved that sort of grunting and straining noises from a guy accompanied by squeaky noises from a girl, and after a few moments being slightly disturbed she decided she really didn't want to know. Fortunately, she couldn't hear the racket from her room, meaning that she and Tara got some sleep.

In the morning, after cleaning up and helping Tara comb, she headed down the Great Hall for breakfast and found the usual gang sat at the usual table; Harry, the Walkers and S'tarak'hai. Today, Harry looked definitely pleased with himself.

The two girls seated themselves and began eating. Hermione was starting to get a bit annoyed with the strained atmosphere between S'tarak'hai and Bruce, but didn't quite dare say anything.

Today there was a chair waiting for Luna.

"Hi, guys."

Who arrived right as Hermione noted the presence of the chair. Today, her hair was back in it's ponytails. However, there was something seriously wrong with her apparel.

"Luna, why in the fuck are you naked?" Alice asked.

In short, Luna was not wearing anything. She seemed to digest Alice's question, frowned, looked down at herself, and blinked.

"I thought it was a bit draughty." She said.

"Alice, you spoilsport!" Harry complained. "I was enjoying the view."

"Perv." Bruce said.

"You're staring too, you ginger New Aussie git."

"Grmph." A certain tigress remarked.

Hermione removed her cardigan (she had a T-shirt underneath) and silently handed it to Luna, who looked puzzled for a long moment, then made a sudden getting-it expression and put it on.

"So what have we got today?" S'tarak'hai growled.

"Celestial Studies, it's bollocks." Harry said. "Then History of Magecraft."

"Isn't Celestial Studies where we get to learn about extraplanar stuff, parasite realities, and so on?" Tara asked.

"Yeah, and it's all metaphysical bollocks. A whole lot of theory and bugger all reality." Harry explained.

"I think it's fascinating, and often beautiful." Luna mused.

As the crew of them finished their food, a very smug-looking Ron arrived.

"Did you hear someone superglued all Malfoy's Y-fronts to the ceiling in the Slytherin hangout last night?" he asked, sounding as smug as he looked.

"Malfoy seriously wears **Y-fronts**?" Alice asked. Ron nodded and she started sniggering.

"Gred and Forge?" Harry checked; Ron nodded again.

"Most of the time having practical joker brothers is a pain in the bum." He said. "But sometimes, it's great."

"I located a source of a substantial number of livestock-marking guns last night." S'tarak'hai remarked.

"Uh, what are those?" Hermione asked.

"Think of it as a paint-bullet training weapon loaded with waterproof dye." The massive catman sagely explained. "The type I've located are a design from an agricultural colony a few hundred lights from here. Accurate range approximately fifty metres, magazine capacity of thirty-five rounds, semi-automatic operation, it's a straight blowback design."

"Sights?" Harry asked.

"Fixed." S'tarak'hai said. Harry nodded.

"Thought so. For my part, I took a turn into town early this morning and picked up some supplies. Let's just say I'm arranging a very unpleasant experience for that little blonde bastard." Harry said.

"Ben Chaos says he's got a large quantity of Nerf guns he's going to be handing out in the Gryffindor hangout this evening." S'tarak'hai said. "Between them and my marking guns there should be enough to arm every Gryffindor."

"Cool." Ron said, finally noticing something. "Uh, Luna, why are you only wearing a jumper?"

"I must have forgot to put my clothes on this morning." Luna said.

"… forget I asked." Ron muttered.

"Asked what?" Luna asked, puzzled.

"That I asked why… oh fuck, this is doing my head in." Ron grumbled.

"I seem to be having an increasingly surreal day." Hermione remarked.

Harry turned to her, grinned, and said, "Fish."

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**Disclaimer: Yet more Draco-bashing ahead! Bork-Bork-Bork!**

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**Top Dog: Enter the Fnords**

**Book 1: Harry Johnson and the Headmaster's Socks.**

**A Doghead13 / United Galaxies fanfic**

**Written & produced by Calum J 'Doghead13' Wallace**

**Brought to you by Hairy Scottish Git Productions, GMBH**

**This is not a drill.**

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**Chapter 9: Nobody's Tool, Nobody's Fool.**

**(In which our hero attempts to ram a point home)**

With breakfast finished, they headed for the latest class with Harry and S'tarak'hai discussing the merits of different types of breech locking as they went; a discussion that got horribly technical and Hermione was rather relieved to hear the end of by the time Harry said, "I guess it's mainly a matter of preference, but I still say roller-locking is better than dropped-barrel" as they entered the Celestial Studies lecture hall, Room 22.

This room was large and airy, and littered with a shedload of computer gear. It was also scattered (around the teacher's desk) with massive quantities of empty liquor bottles and assorted unidentifiable gubbins. A beat-up holotank graced one corner, with a clockwork model of the Solar System in the opposite corner. The walls were scattered with paintings of unidentifiable beasties and photos of weird alien vistas. A small photograph of a maniacally grinning green-eyes Amerindian-looking man adorned the desk, perched on top of the computer's big old CRT monitor.

"Celestial Studies?" Hermione overheard one of the other first year Gryffindors ask. "You which what who?"

"A very pertinent question." A cheery voice responded.

A tall, bronzed-skinned, white-haired, scantily-clad woman with odd markings on her face had appeared behind the teacher's desk while nobody was looking. There wasn't any visible entrance there; just a big old desk littered with papers and a computer with a bulky CRT monitor.

"I'm Urthr Wodensdotter, but call me Urd." the woman continued, "And I'll be doing my best to give you lot some basic understanding of the nature of what you call Heaven and Hell, or, to use the correct terms, Asgard and Stygia." She picked up a whiskey bottle and took a slug of booze. "Well, looks like everyone's here." She continued, glancing at the monitor. "So, let's proceed."

Urd swept her eyes around the room, making sure she had everyone's attention, then carried on.

"The nature of the reality you live in is sophisticated; I don't expect many of you to be able to visualise an eight-dimensional sphere, so I'd like you all to take my word for it that it is quite complex and stunningly beautiful."

"Woah, yeah, it is, isn't it?" Luna murmured, earning herself an amused glance from Urd.

"First, understand this much. Reality is composed of many layers, of which the material plane is only one. You live in four-dimensional space; the fourth dimension is of course time. The fifth dimension is what is called subspace and overspace; the material plane is quite close to the outmost layer. The sixth dimension is the Celestial Realm, composed of the seven circles of Hell, the Immaterium, the Spirit Plane and the seven planes of Asgard; in this particular universe the material plane is almost precisely at the centre. All of these layered dimensions meet here in the material plane. You may be wondering what use that information has to a mage; it is in fact vital to even the most basic understanding of magic. Can anyone tell me the nature of magic itself?"

Tara's hand popped up.

"Carry on, Miss T'rash'gal."

"Magic is the tidal energies of the interplay between the Immaterium and the Spirit Plane." Tara stated.

Urd nodded. "Essentially, yes. But it's a touch more complex than that. The Immaterium can be regarded as 'heavy', the spirit plane as 'light'. Although a lot of people – the clown who wrote your Celestial Studies textbook included – believe that there is a strict divide between the Immaterium, the material plane, and the Spirit Plane, this is in fact complete nonsense. If such a divide existed, thaumatic energy would not exist. Both of these two planes are so close to reality that a certain degree of seepage occurs. The Immaterium is approximately a nanometre 'down' while the Spirit Plane is approximately a nanometre 'up'. Like the material plane, those two layers have natural energies. The natural energy of the Immaterium is ectoplasm. The natural energy of the material plane is radiation in all it's forms, light included. And the natural energy of the Spirit Plane is of course ki. Thaumatic energy is a roughly even mix of the three, which of course explains exactly why most magecraft has a visible light effect. You might be interested to know that most spells that do not have a visible light effect are releasing a radio signal. Yes, Mr Johnson?"

"Why is all this important?" Harry asked.

Urd chuckled quietly.

"That's the commonest question anyone asks me. My dear boy, how do you expect to, for example, open a portal into the Immaterium, or tap extra thaumatic energy, or summon a spirit, or step into the spirit plane, or create an Immaterial Realm, if you don't understand the forces involved? It is similar to the difference between a pilot and an engineer. The pilot doesn't understand how or why the ship works; he just flies it. The engineer knows exactly what makes the ship work, and how, and why. So he can quite probably improve the ship. A mage can quite easily cast spells, even extremely powerful spells, without having the faintest clue how magic and reality work. But a mage who doesn't understand magic is unlikely to ever create his own spells. Doing so is generally considered the ultimate goal of magecraft."

"What exactly," Tara asked, "**Is** the Immaterium?"

Urd chuckled again.

"The Immaterium is the potential for existence, without any actual existence. It is a shadowy echo of the material plane. Things of great cultural significance will appear on the Immaterium. It is existence without rules or limits, a place where nothing is ever as it seems. In other words, it is clinically strange and chronically fails to make any sense whatsoever. For example, there's nothing there which hasn't been put there but it has a definite down, which is whichever way you think it is."

"That doesn't make much sense." Hermione said.

"Don't be retarded, mudblood." Someone jeered.

That someone was Draco Malfoy.

Urd stood up and walked over to him, her expression unnervingly calm.

She stood, looming over him, a contemplative look on her face.

"Did you know," she remarked, "That your father has no **left nut**? It was cut off by a certain Jedi of my acquaintance; I think it's a pity Ben didn't get rid of that bleach-blonde Sith's **other** nut at the same time. I would like to make one thing **abundantly** clear, **human**. If I hear one more piece of speciesist horse-shit come out of your mouth, I will permanently remove your ability to talk, I will permanently remove your ability to reproduce and I will feed your malignant little soul to my sister, Mara Helasdotter. And before you think I'm bluffing, I am an Asgardian goddess; I am therefore incapable of lying, and when I state that I will do something it is _binding_. Understood?"

Draco nodded with a petrified squeak.

"Good." Urd snapped. She then sauntered back to her desk.

"Um, hold the phone." Hermione said. "Goddess?"

Urd nodded calmly.

"I am Urthr Wodensdotter, Norn of the past and eldest daughter of Odin Winterbeard and Hela Heartsfire. Guess that's screwing with your sense of reality, hey kid?" She slugged back another shot of whiskey. "So, anyway, where were we?"

"Now _that_," S'tarak'hai rumbled, "Fucks with _my_ sense of reality. The goddess of the past has a lousy short-term memory. Unreal, man."

Urd snorted.

"Kid, I'm almost five billion years old. Try keeping track of current events after _that_ length of time. Hint: it won't prove easy."

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By the end of the class, every student in the room was sincerely confused. Urd had made a point of not just explaining things; she'd taken them to have a look around in the Spirit Realm, the Immaterium, Asgard and Stygia, and even subspace (which half the occupants of the room were already familiar with due to starships) and patiently explained exactly how each layer went together, aided by the holotank and a lot of diagrams.

It was beyond complex; only Luna seemed to get it.

During lunch, they had an unexpected interruption when McGonagall came over: "Harry, Albus wishes to speak to you this evening. Be at his office at seven o'clock sharp. The passport is 'Mars Bars'. Don't be late." She said.

Harry nodded; she smiled at him and headed back to the staff table.

"I wonder what that was about?" Hermione mused.

"Probably my 'discussion' with Snape yesterday." Harry said. "Either that or my getting gobshited on 'bane in front of half of Gryffindor."

"Why'd you do that anyway?" S'tarak'hai asked.

"Stress." Harry told him. "I didn't exactly have fun having my suspicions proven right by that bleach-blonde little shit and the drooling greaseball, and I tend to get flashbacks to Garg's Landing after I blow up like that."

S'tarak'hai winced. Harry nodded.

"Exactly. About the only way I can calm down after that is blow something up, kill the bastard who set me off or get completely cunted out my face." Harry explained with a shrug. "Garg's Landing was not a pleasant fucking experience, I still get nightmares, and flashing back is not fucking fun. I've got an extreme resistance to alcohol – it takes enough to kill five humans to even start having an effect on me, don't ask, it's a secret – and therefore if I'm going to get fucked enough to forget I need something _powerful_. The sex is a side effect; I'm one of those weres 'bane has an aphrodisiac effect on. Good thing I've got Carla, I'm stuffed if I know what I'd do without her."

"Why a hallucinogen in particular?" Tara asked, obviously fascinated.

Harry snorted. "Apart from the whole sex-crazed thing I seem to have a good reaction to wolfsbane potion. Never had a bad trip; I've seen some pretty weird shit, heads coming out of the furniture, technicolour fish everywhere, little multicolour lights whizzing around, pink elephants – but after some of the shit I've seen for real it doesn't faze me and the sense of unreality and euphoria helps me settle my nerves."

"Are you addicted to that stuff?" Hermione asked.

Harry considered that for a long moment.

"Not sure." He said. "Wolfsbane potion isn't chemically addictive, but there's a good chance I'm psychologically addicted to it."

After lunch, their next stop was the History of Magecraft classroom; Room 17.

This room was a similar size and shape to the Celestial Studies classroom and in fact on the same hall, but it's walls were lined with ranks of dozens of picture windows, each looking out on a geologically similar but architecturally radically different scene, each showing the same city in the same river valley; in the first the city was a small village and the river a narrow stream, in progressive windows the village grew and matured, a castle appearing at it's centre, then tall factory chimneys and rail lines, roads sprawling forth, traffic clogging the streets, glass high-rise buildings, even flying cars.

In the last window at the far end of the room, the city was a ruin, the sky black as night and wracked by storms; a blasted bombed-out wasteland that made Hermione's blood run cold in her veins.

A woman stood, her back turned to the class, looking out that window.

"There is a time for truth." The woman said. "There is a time for deception. And there is a time for all things among the sea of stars. Each of those windows is in the same location a century apart; in this moment you see two thousand years of history laid out before you. A village becomes a city. A stream becomes a river. And a city becomes a wasteland. Thus is our fate and our honour; to watch the tides of history unfold."

The woman turned round; several students very promptly fell in love.

She was tall, shapely, and a classical beauty. She also oozed raw power; she had a martial artist's finely-honed body and moved with a deadly sort of efficiency and grace that blew most of the room away.

Her style of dress was even weirder close-up. Not only was she wearing a nearly-transparent white tank-top, denim jeans and shitkicking boots, it was apparent from this distance that her chrome glove was in fact a prosthetic arm, and the bright metal at her throat was a shiny plate attached to a leather choker. She also had a black reinforced-looking glove on her left hand, which had markedly longer fingers than her cybernetic right.

"Good afternoon, class. My name is Setsuna Meiuu, and I am going to roll back the past for you; welcome aboard. Oh, and Mr Nott? A class starting at two o'clock means two o'clock sharp, not two minutes past. Ten points from Slytherin for bad timekeeping."

"But Professor Snape said-" Nott started.

"Ten points from Slytherin for arguing." Setsuna snapped. "I am not Severus Snape, I am Setsuna 'Bitch with PMT' Meiuu, and you're a miserable little inbred bastard who'll get his bollocks handed to him in a sandwich baggie if he dares screw me around."

Nott glared at her, but shut up anyway.

"I like this woman already." Ron muttered in an aside to Hermione.

"I often get asked," Setsuna said, "What significance can the past have? What makes it worth bothering with history? People who ask those questions have one of two problems. Either they are gravely uninformed, or they are idiots. History has always repeated itself. What goes up inevitably comes back down. There is a reason I say 'tides' when I talk about time, and I intend that you will all come to understand that over the coming year. Take, just as an example, the current nonsense about bloodline purity."

"It's not nonsense!" Draco spluttered.

"Baaaaaad move." Harry murmured as Setsuna's head very slowly rotated to stare at Draco.

"Not nonsense?" she asked, a hint of irony in her voice. "Then tell me this; why has every single organisation that ever administered that kind of genetic pogrom collapsed in an inbred heap?"

"I am not inbred!" Draco spluttered, on his feet.

Setsuna contemplated that for a long moment, and then smiled.

It wasn't a very nice smile.

She gestured; a window opened in the air, revealing a trash-strewn back alley; struggling figures; a high shrill voice raised in fear… a very simple, nasty, lowdown equation everyone knew.

A short man exploded into the alley; there was a slam of meat against meat, and a tall figure went flying.

"Get away from her you sick fuck!" a rough voice snarled.

"You bast-"

Another crash; the slam of a punch striking unprotected flesh. Something made a wet sliding noise; a man screamed.

"You fucking touch her like that again, the next one takes your balls off."

Now the short man was helping one of the figures out of the garbage. The view closed on the third figure's face.

Draco gasped.

Hermione frowned slightly. The face looked a bit like Draco, but not quite. Maybe his brother or…

"That was how my grandfather met your father, Mr Malfoy." Setsuna remarked, the portal vanishing as she spoke.

… his father.

"Thought that looked like Dad." Harry remarked. "Who was the woman?"

"Just a mudblood, I'll bet." Draco snapped.

"Ten points from Slytherin." Setsuna stated. "I will not have bigotry within this room, Malfoy."

"But everyone knows purebloods are better." Draco complained.

Setsuna very calmly pulled the glove off her left hand, revealing why she looked so long-fingered.

She had inch-long talons where her fingernails should be.

She very calmly squeezed the lip of Draco's desk; the talons went through without any visible resistance, and Draco wet himself.

"That's another ten points from Slytherin for being a bigot." She said. "I wonder why you're so much less powerful than your Hardak ancestors? I wonder why so many mundane-born magi are so powerful? I wonder if you have any clue about genetics? I knew Shanok Malfoy, your direct line ancestor by sixty generations. He was a good and honourable man; how far the mighty have fallen since that jerk Salazar started that whole 'pureblood' bullshit. I wonder how long it'll take people like you to realise you're all a bunch of cretinous inbred retards without a scrap of the nobility your ancestors possessed? If you fuck your cousin for too many generations your DNA is going to go down the tubes, it's as simple as that."

Harry smirked.

"Someone's getting an extra-special hug from her dad." He murmured. "I think she might be quoting me."

"Oh, and Malfoy? Pissing on the floor is against Collegium rules. Ten points from Slytherin and two weeks detention, I'm sure Filch needs some toilets cleaned." Setsuna remarked, and went back to the front of the room.

She then proceeded to demonstrate how interesting it can be having a history teacher who's soul is firmly affixed to the most powerful time machine ever constructed.

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"That was… wow! Your kid is awesome!" Ron enthused as they slouched into the Great Hall for dinner. "I'm gonna treasure the memory of Draco pissing his pants for the rest of my life!"

Harry just smirked.

They talked about bits and pieces from the day's classes through dinner, then headed back to the Gryffindor hangout.

They'd only just sat down when Fred and George arrived, along with Ben Chaos and Fleggitt.

"Is that poster for real?" Fred asked. Harry glanced up.

"Of course. Snape pissed me off."

"Snape was a bastard last year." Ben mused. "But he was a fair bastard. Something's changed. It's almost like he's turned into… I dunno… an ugly caricature of himself."

Fred nodded thoughtfully. "Yeah. I mean, he used to be a bit favouritist to Slytherins, about as much as McGonagall is to us or Flitwick is to the Ravenclaws. This year he's turned into… like a bogeyman or something."

"What poster?" Ron asked.

"Oh, after the crap that grease-haired shithead gave me and Tara I decided to advertise." Harry said. "It's over on the notice board."

"Advertise what?" Ron blankly asked. Harry gave him a disgusted look.

"Ron Weasely, I'm a mercenary gunman." He stated. "What do you think I'm advertising, sewing lessons? People pay me lots of money to make other people thoroughly dead in a spectacularly and unnecessarily messy and violent manner."

"So you're just a common murderer?" Ron asked, recoiling.

"I really hate that fucking stereotype." Harry said. "Yes. I murder people and get paid to do it, and I am not gentle about it. Take the first person I assassinated. I walked up to him and blew his balls off with a twelve gauge pump shotgun, then pissed on him while he was laying there screaming. He was what's called a kiddie peddler; in other words, a pimp providing child prostitutes, all of whom were 'acquired' by kidnapping off the street. Some of them were as young as five, Ron. Tell me this. Which is more 'evil'; to blow that sick fuck to hamburger meat, or to let him live to brutalise innocent little kids again? In that situation, I know for damn sure what I'll do every time; put the bullet somewhere it'll take a couple minutes for the sick bastard to bleed to death, then take a piss in his face while he screams for help that won't fucking come because I already shot his help in the head. The thing most people just don't get is that the vast majority of assassination targets deserve something a lot worse than a bullet in the forebrain, and when I'm called in they get something a lot worse than just getting shot. Those people aren't exactly members of the Salvation Army; they're terrorists, psychopaths, exceptionally violent criminals, paedophiles, drug pushers who've left a trail of bullet-riddled corpses, serial killers, and other such deranged sadistic fuck-heads. They are not nice fucking people, Ron. And what I do is express mail them to a not nice fucking place. Don't you fucking dare judge me because I expect to be paid to do the job; life has all sorts of expenses, and if I don't get paid I'm not going to be able to afford to eat. Most of the time when I meet people like me I really don't like them, and in fact a lot of the time I meet them when I've been hired to put a bullet through their brain. Hell, I don't like myself much and sometimes I scare the ever-living shit out of me. But you know what? I haven't got much choice in the matter if I'm going to stay alive, and I've got a lot of stuff to get done before I snuff it. I'm not a fucking hero, but don't you fucking dare damn me for doing the dirty work that means your parents and little sister are safe at night. I am not a nice fucking person, but sometimes what this galaxy needs is a stone cold killer just like me."

"… uh, oh." Ron said, stumped. "Uh… sorry."

"Think about it for a while, Ron." Harry instructed. "I'm going to go do some maintenance.. I'll be in my room if anyone needs me."

"Aren't you supposed to be meeting with the headmaster?" Hermione asked.

Harry spat noisily.

"He needs to learn, I am not at his beck and call."

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About half an hour later, just after Dumbledore had passed on his way up into the dorm, Hermione noticed S'tarak'hai peering around.

"Where's Johnson?" the huge catman asked, noticing her.

"He's in his room, I think." She said.

"Thanks." S'tarak'hai told her, and headed thatway.

"Isn't the headmaster up there?" Tara asked.

Hermione shrugged.

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"Come in." Harry said. Dumbledore peered into the room.

It contained enough firepower to start World Wars 3, 4, 5 and 6, and quite possibly 7 and 8 as well.

"My word." He said, recognising several of the weapons; a brace of Kenti grav rifles, an Old Atlantean Space Marine's bolter (with Dark Angels chapter markings and an attached purity seal; it certainly looked genuine) a Clanguard crew-served particle machine gun, a Deladarian landwarrior's powerbow and, most hair-raising of the lot, a Kenti anti-material rifle; the enormous Mentler AV-DRKS, the galaxy's most powerful man-portable weapon; it was set up on a motorised tripod with the barrel aimed out of the tiny piece of window that wasn't covered by a shelf full of books. There was a whole galaxy of handguns, sub-machine guns, assault rifles and missile launchers; three dozen swords, a rack of fifteen assorted lightsabres and box after box of hand grenades, explosives, bullets, missiles and rockets, along with the many tools a professional would need to keep his weapons in perfect tune.

"You have a fairly impressive collection here, Harry." Dumbledore said.

Harry shrugged, putting a massive break-top revolver down on the table and continuing to polish his E-Mag. "I never throw a perfectly usable weapon away; it might save my life one day. I'd really like to get an Old Atlantean storm bolter, and I haven't got much support or anti-armour weaponry, and getting ammo for that big Kenti pea-shooter is a total cunt, but it's a good start of a respectable little armoury. So anyway, back on subject, what is the purpose of this visit?"

Dumbledore sat down, realising that Harry had been holding the revolver on him underneath the table. He decided not to broach that subject.

"I wanted to ask why you didn't attend the meeting I requested."

Harry put the gun parts down and spun his swivel chair round.

"That's simple. Because I knew what it was about, and didn't particularly see a need to explain myself as the explanation should be self-evident."

"Humour me." Dumbledore said.

Harry spat. "Snape's a limp dick who doesn't belong in a lecture hall until he grows up and realises he's dealing with adults, not kindergarten fucking pupils. Have you got any idea what that little bitch acts like in class? It's no wonder Slytherin have won the cup every year since that dick started work here, his idea of 'just and fair behaviour' involves removing points from anyone not Slytherin while giving Slytherins points for so much as blinking. If the points could go negative, Gryffindor would now be at about negative one thousand. He pushed Tara's cauldron off her desk then issued her detention for 'purposefully causing a mess'. But what the hell, everyone knows you've already decided Slytherin is going to win the House Cup, so nobody gives a fuck about the points system. That big baby is a spoilt brat and a whiney bitch, and until he grows up he shouldn't be a lecturer. You'd better keep greaseball on a short leash, Dumbledork. Because if he keeps pushing it I'll put a .60 hot-load through his head."

"You'd… kill him? Surely you're joking!"

Harry laughed in his face.

"I don't joke about things like that, old man. Anyway, if greaseball keeps playing the fucking arsehole, I'll start regarding him as an enemy. You know what I do to enemies? Kill 'em all and let the gods sort 'em out; dead men can't put a bullet in your back. And that lecture hall of his doesn't help, I'm being paid a hundred and forty thousand crisp clean New Australian dollars a day to keep someone in my year safe, I think you know who they are and who's paying me, and my mark is in that disaster waiting to happen of a 'lecture hall' every fucking alchemy class. You do realise she represents the future of a galactic superpower? It's cramped, there's no ventilation, there's no fire suppression equipment, we're dealing with compounds that can turn explosive and there's nothing to provide blast shields between desks – and then there's Snape's 'teaching style', throw 'em in at the deep end and see if they swim, and keep pushing their heads under to see if they come up again while you're at it. Either you do something about it or I'll organise a little accident that wrecks that fucking deathtrap so badly it becomes permanently unusable."

Dumbledore sighed.

"Harry, this is all very illuminating but I wasn't wanting to discuss your little confrontation with Severus; I agree that his behaviour is becoming excessive. I wanted to discuss your riding a certain motorcycle indoors, and a few… little details about you."

"Well, you didn't mention motorbikes in your little what-vehicles-are-not-permitted-inside speech, did you?" Harry ingeniously stated. "Look, old man. I don't like you and I don't respect you, I don't respect your rules, and I'm going to do exactly what I want. You're paying me seventy grand a day. That's a pretty good rate, but it's nothing special. My other client is paying me double that amount, along with the understanding that they owe me a nuclear-level favour for each month I spend protecting my mark. Now, I can ditch this joke of a collegium like a hot car in Vegas any time I like; I've bought one of the houses on campus and I am able to get to any part of this building undetected. I know you need me here; well, it's my way or the highway. Understand?"

"I do understand, but I would like to request that you don't use motor vehicles inside the building; if anyone got run down the paperwork would be a bitch."

Harry stared at Dumbledore for a long moment, then chuckled.

"Okay." He said. "I won't, except in an emergency. That's the best you'll get out of me, so I'd advise you to accept it."

Dumbledore slowly nodded.

"I see." He said. "Now, about those little details. Your father stated in his will that you were to inherit his estate on your entering the Collegium. His will was left in my care; I was going to take it to you on your sixteenth, but on the day the wards went haywire, then when I arrived at your home I found you gone and medical personnel removing your uncle from the building."

"That shit-hole is not my home." Harry bluntly stated. "My home is a 1944 New Aussie Holden road train."

"I see. But anyway; here. Your father's will. There is also the matter of your mother." Dumbledore stated. "Your mother was shot in the head, at point-blank range, with a 15-cal double-barrel laser blaster. The shot burnt a pair of holes clear through her skull, cooking most of her brain in the process and leaving her with the mind of a newborn baby."

"I know all that. Clear case of mind-wipe." Harry said, fastening the last screw and slotting the E-Mag's magazine in.

Dumbledore nodded.

"I placed her with a pleasant mundane couple I know. They have no children and cannot ever have children as Anne has been sterile since a motor accident in her twenties, but I digress. The moment I handed you that will, you became the effective head of House Potter. This means that the future disposition of your mother is up to you. She is currently scheduled to begin attendance of this Collegium next year."

Harry pursed his lips.

"Purchase a military-grade killer doll and bind it to her as a hand familiar." He said. "Take the cost out of my pay, I'm not letting some scumbag hurt my mom after everything she's been through. Oh, and have her come here under the surname Johnson. We'll put it about that she's my little sister and that if anyone so much as looks at her funny they'll get a pissed-off me down on them like a ton of fucking bricks. That last part's true, just so you know. Nobody fucking touches my family." He started fiddling with the massive Kenti AMR.

"She has been raised under the surname Evans." Dumbledore said.

"You've got my permission to use a small quantity of mind-programming to make her think her family name's Johnson." Harry stated. "Don't use it for anything else; because if you do I'll know and I'll go fucking ballistic on you."

Dumbledore nodded, accepting that.

"Understandable." He said. "My reaction would be much the same in your place."

"I need to meet the people you left Mom with." Harry concluded.

"I'll arrange it. Would the October break be soon enough?"

"Yes, that'll be fine. Get me her dossier; birth records and everything since she was mind-wiped and I'll have a cover identity constructed by then." Harry instructed.

Dumbledore nodded again.

"I'll have the information with you by this time next week. Will you need anything else?"

"Mmmh… not for now." Harry said. "I'll give you a spec sheet for that killer doll. I'm pretty sure you'll raise your eyebrows at a few of the little details, but believe you me, they are there for a fucking good reason. Is that everything you wanted to discuss?"

"For now." Dumbledore said.

"Good. Just one thing before you go. I'm trying to piece together the full details of what happened that night in 1981. I'd appreciate it if you'd give me a write-up on what you remember."

Dumbledore paused for a long moment, then nodded.

"I'll see what I can do." He said, rising to his feet.

"Thanks. Catch you later." Harry replied, and with a nod the headmaster departed, somehow failing to notice the nine foot catman who was leaning against the wall beside Harry's door.

S'tarak'hai straightened up and rapped on the door.

"Come in." Harry said, once again holding the revolver under the table.

S'tarak'hai came in; Harry smiled and put the pistol back on the table, causing a quirky grin to flicker across the Kenti landwarrior's face.

"You had me cold, didn't you?" S'tarak'hai checked.

"Could've put all three shells into your centre of mass before the door finished opening." Harry said with a nod. "Take a seat."

"You haven't slipped a beat." S'tarak'hai sprawled on one of the sofas. "Still the same paranoid asshole; I approve. Nice furnishings."

"Yeah, brought 'em with me. Most of 'em came out of a New Aussie dump just outside Crashzone; you'd be amazed at the great stuff the Crazone richie-ass bastards throw out. So, what'd you want to talk about?"

"I overheard your discussion with the head. Is your mark who I think it is?"

Harry looked up from the huge sniper rifle. "I'm surprised your old man didn't tell you. He briefed me on why you're here. Let's just say that I'm here for much the same reason, and leave it at that." He looked back through the scope, and made another minute adjustment to the rifle's position.

S'tarak'hai slowly nodded; a slight smile momentarily flickered across his face.

"I thought as much. My father told me that I would have backup, and that I would 'appreciate the identity of said backup'. I now realise what the meddlesome old fuddy-duddy meant."

"Take a look at this." Harry said, finally stopping adjusting the alignment of the rifle and gesturing at the scope.

S'tarak'hai made an interested noise, crouched down, and peered into it.

"What am I looking for?"

"You're looking at Dumbledore's bedroom. That door on the left? His en suite. You can just make out one corner of his bed from this angle. I watched him get up this morning; I could've put a slug in his skull before he had time to blink. Stupid old bastard should be more careful."

"Very interesting. Very _careless_. Isn't it funny how nobody ever listens to us paranoid loons until it's far too late?" S'tarak'hai mused.

"Yeah. Maybe I ought to… aw, to Hell with that. I don't need to kick over that ant pile." Harry shook his head and sat back.

"Johnson."

"Yeah?"

"How'd you get hold of an AV-DRKS?"

Harry contemplated the gigantic sniper rifle for a moment. It was well over eight feet long and weighed just over a quarter of a ton; nearly thirty kilos of that weight was the huge transceiver attached to the side that could digitally connect the rifle to a targeting satellite, or the sensor pack on a Kenti subspace destroyer. The enormous adjustable scope could be focused perfectly on any range between fifty metres and over two thousand kilometres; the rifle was an awe-inspiring piece of equipment. They called it man-portable, but that was only the case if you were superhuman. Not a problem for cyborgs like Harry and S'tarak'hai.

"It was a gift from your father," he said, "After the op where we met."

S'tarak'hai nodded. "Hell of a way of saying thanks."

Harry nodded. "What goes around comes around; this big pea-shooter's saved my life a couple of times. I think that was K'tarag'jal's plan."

"After what you did for us and for our queen, you're part of the family." S'tarak'hai said. "You're aware Father still wants to marry my younger sister off to you?"

"Sure I am." Harry said with a grin.

"It's for a reason." S'tarak'hai stated. "I believe that Father would like to be able to legitimately call you 'son'."

Harry nodded. "I know that, and I'm honoured. I just don't know if I'm ready for that kind of a commitment. Marrying into Prathi R'hara'tath – it's a hell of a step for a guy to take, and thinking about it still gives me the nerves."

S'tarak'hai nodded back.

"I can understand **that**." He said. "There aren't many families in this universe who can claim to have been the bodyguards of a royal line for almost eighty thousand standard years."

**--- End Chapter ---**

AN – Urd. Teaching at Hogwarts. Be afraid. Be very afraid.

Roller-locking and dropped-barrel are both methods of stopping a firearm's breech opening, usually in recoil-operated weapons. With all but the least powerful cartridges the breech has to be forcibly held closed until the gas pressure in the barrel drops when the bullet clears the muzzle; there are a multitude of ways to do this. Dropped-barrel is a method originally designed by John Moses Browning; it requires the gun's barrel to physically move, which sounds less than desirable for accuracy reasons to me. Roller-locking (along with varied other methods) allows the barrel to be fixed in place, which I for one think is a much better idea.

Harry is a godsend for my inner gun maniac; while in Biker ½ I have to be very careful with my choice of firearms, Harry and his mates can have pretty much any weird and wonderful hardware I care to pull out the proverbial hat, whether it's genuine equipment such as the Calico or fantasy 'dream guns' such as the E-Mag and AV-DRKS.

I seem to be bashing Draco a lot just now. The poor ferret is going to be bashed incredibly flat and paper thin at this rate.

The op where Harry and S'tarak'hai met features prominently in Top Dog Short 3: For Honour and Vengeance. The actual operation itself may get a write-up at some stage, I don't know yet.


	10. Chapter 10

**This ain't no self-insert fic.**

**This ain't no slash fic neither.**

**This is Top Dog.**

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As Hermione awakened on Wednesday, she finally knew where she was straight off, much to her relief. But now she was waking up with a slight but noticeable headache.

Sometimes it felt like she couldn't win.

She and Tara were beginning to get into a routine; both girls showered, Hermione helped Tara comb her fur, then they wandered down to the Great Hall and joined Harry, the Walkers, S'tarak'hai and a couple minutes later Luna for breakfast. Today Luna was dressed entirely in purple; purple sandals, mismatched purple socks, purple tie-dye jeans, purple men's shirt, and a purple bandanna. Her arrival triggered Tara to ask, "What've we got today?"

"Technomancy, then flight." Harry said. "Cool, then a pile of stupid dogshit that ought to be compiled in with charms."

"Technomancy?" Hermione asked, thrown off track.

"Yup, technomancy." Harry said with a nod. "In other words, we get to piss around with machinery to our heart's content."

"I shall fire a turbine through a roof." Luna remarked.

"And after that we're going to get subjected to a long boring lecture about how to levitate." Harry said, and they lapsed into the strained silence again.

Hermione decided then and there that she'd had enough.

"Bruce, S'tarak'hai, could you two just, I dunno, talk about it or have the fight you're spoiling for or something and stop trying to glare holes in each other? It's getting really annoying." She said.

Bruce considered that, and glanced at Tara.

"It _is_ getting a little wearing." Tara said.

"Blokes. What'd you do with 'em?" Alice grumbled.

"Can't live without 'em, can't get a trade-in for 'em." Harry remarked. "Granger's right. I think I've figured what your situation is, and you're both being bloody idiots."

S'tarak'hai gave him a tight look.

"Lasercom." Harry said, and the two stared fixedly at each other for a few moments.

"Asshole." S'tarak'hai said. "But you're right. Tarai, I need a word in private."

"Now see here mate!" Bruce spluttered, on his feet.

"It's okay, Chief." Tara said. Bruce, muttering darkly, sat back down.

"What's all that about?" Hermione asked as the two Kenti departed the table.

Harry sighed.

"They've known each other since before anyone currently at this table was born." He said. "And let's just say they've got unresolved issues."

"Can't you be a bit more fucking informative?" Bruce snapped.

"I can't do that, Bruce." Harry said. "I promised catboy I wouldn't spill any of his private business, and I don't intend to break that trust. Hang on, there's something I've got to do."

He produced a pair of Nerf guns. Seeing this, several nearby Gryffindors got out their own Nerf weaponry.

Harry snuck over to the Death Munchkin corner. Sneaking wasn't very effective when you're being accompanied by a herd of two or so hundred Nerf-toting Gryffindors.

"What the fuck do you want, mudblood?" Flint asked.

"GET HIM!" Harry screamed, Nerfing Draco.

We will draw a veil over the ensuing scenes of horrifying Nerf.

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**Disclaimer: Having tired of bashing Draco, I'm now Nerfing him.**

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**Top Dog: Enter the Fnords**

**Book 1: Harry Johnson and the Headmaster's Socks.**

**A Doghead13 / United Galaxies fanfic**

**Written & produced by Calum J 'Doghead13' Wallace**

**Brought to you by Hairy Scottish Git Productions, GMBH**

**This is not a drill.**

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**Chapter 10: In search of legends**

**(In which our hero begins to come clean)**

Tara and S'tarak'hai came back in, both wearing identical serious expressions.

"Chief, S'tarak'hai has something he needs to tell you." Tara said, and sat back down to resume her breakfast; Bruce followed the huge catman outside, glaring at his back the whole way.

Once they were a good distance from any possible eavesdroppers, S'tarak'hai turned round and levelled an extremely serious look at Bruce.

"I don't know what you've done to Nav." Bruce said. "But remember this, mate. That pretty kitty may not look like much, but me and Alice don't just owe her our lives. We owe her our livelihood and our home. If it wasn't for Tara, we'd have lost the Blink Dog; she's like the big sister we never had. She's a part of our family, and we'll do what it takes to look after her. I don't know what you did to hurt her, but if you do anything more I'll make you wish you'd never been fucking born, got it mate?"

S'tarak'hai inclined his head.

"Captain, I'd like you to understand this much." He said. "I love her more than life itself. Tarai is as a part of me. If she comes to harm, it will be when I have spent my last drop of blood fighting for her. I love her and wish to see her live a long, fruitful and happy life."

"What the Hell is it between you two?" Bruce asked, somewhat thrown off.

S'tarak'hai looked at him for a long moment.

"This stays strictly between you and I." he said, then, in five terse words, turned Bruce's world inside out and explained the mystery.

"Crikey." Said Bruce.

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When S'tarak'hai and Bruce returned, the tension between them was gone, much to the relief of everyone at the table. Shortly after that, they headed off for the first class of the day – technomancy in room 200.

This room was large and airy, with truly enormous French windows looking out across the lawn, a high ceiling and plenty of ventilation.

Apart from that, it looked like a mad inventor's workshop. Machines of all kinds were littered everywhere in varied stages of disassembly, including two sleds, six cars, a dozen motorbikes and a small helicopter. Bin after bin of parts festooned the walls, and there were tools of all shapes and sized littered absolutely everywhere.

A large, hirsute-looking moustachioed gentleman in a tweed jacket was fiddling with the insides of a piece of mechanical something-or-other while smoking a pipe.

It took nearly ten minutes for him to notice the students had arrived, by which time people were poking around every which what where; when he realised, he shot upright with a delighted cry of "AHA!", thus revealing he had a slight but detectable German accent.

He started pacing excitedly around the room, rubbing his hands together.

"Welcome, welcome, welcome! I am Doctor Rubens K Hindenburg, and I am here to give you young chaps and ladies a good, solid foundation in the precise and MAGNIFICENT science of technomancy!" The large moustachioed gentleman raved, grinning hugely. "Forget the brewing of potions. Forget the waving of athames. THIS is where the true WONDER lies!" He suddenly noticed that Bruce was contemplating a small fusion turbine that was strapped firmly to a machine rest. "Worked with thrusters before, Mr…?"

"Captain Bruce Walker, mate." Bruce said. "And I gotta say, you won't get this thing to run like this."

"Oh? And pray tell, Captain, what needs to be done?" Hindenburg asked. Although his wording was similar to one of Snape's snide comments, he said it in a cheery and genuinely interested manner.

"You've got to do this." Bruce replied, hauled on the strip-down latch, pulled some parts out, fiddled with them, belted one on the top of the turbine casing, had another fiddle with them, nodded, scraped at a couple of pieces of hefty cable with his athame and put the parts back together, finally stomping on the strip-down latch to make sure it was fully rammed home. He then grabbed the old sled throttle assembly Hindenburg had set up on a nearby table and clicked it to neutral.

There was a whine that rapidly built to a steady, very healthy-sounding turbine howl, and a blast of plasma leapt out the little turbine's exhaust nozzle.

Bruce revved it a couple of times, causing it to spit more plasma and try to wrench the machine rest out as he gave it welly, then shut it down.

"Number 7 spinner vane was bent a bit out of true, and the A and D power feeds had crap on the contacts, char from a bad circuit I think, enough to damp some of the plasma generation and give it nasty starboard drag." Bruce explained, idly shrugging one shoulder.

"My word! Marvellous, my dear fellow! Marvellous. Tell me, Captain. How is it you're so familiar with the workings of electron-plasma thrusters?"

"I'm the captain and chief technician of a blockade runner, mate." Bruce said with a shrug. "It's my job to work miracles. I've had to strip and fix turbines in some pretty nasty places. Got an 8-terawatt turbine running after it ate six rail gun slugs one time; that was one nasty jury-rig. But it got us to Skid Row in one piece, and that's the main thing."

"A blockade runner, you say? Marvellous! Why, I myself was once the chief engineer for a blockade runner. One of the old Mentler DX-32's, a wonderful ship. They don't make them like they used to, take my word for it!"

"I don't need to, mate. Me and my sister own the LSS-17332 Blink Dog, a Mentler DX-32. You're right; the manoeuvring thrusters on the more modern DX's are better, but everything else about the '32 is vastly superior."

"My word, the Blink Dog eh? Why, it's such a relief to hear she's in space again! I well remember the day we heard she'd been crashed; I nearly cried. I was on the KRD-32296 G'rath'tareal, a wonderful old boat. Why, one time she made it back to Kendarat with nothing but duct tape holding the mains on the subspace drive! She was one long jury-rig, millennia of quick-fix repairs, and it took both hands and feet to keep her running, but once you knew her, knew all her ways, she'd blow the socks off of anything this side of an Unlimited-class asteroid racer."

Bruce nodded agreeingly.

"Too true mate. You've gotta know your boat, really know her."

"A good starship," Hindenburg proclaimed, "Is like a beautiful woman, my dear fellow. If you treat her right, she'll be with you till the end of your days. When I'm out and about, I see so many otherwise perfectly good people who hardly know the first thing about how to take care of their ship. I assure you, it's all I can do to keep from crying."

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Hindenburg's teaching style seemed to consist of encouraging the students to mess with bits of machinery and wandering round dealing out encouragement and pointers; the man seemed to be everywhere during the lesson, in which he somehow managed to get the very basics of technomancy across to the entire class, not that anyone could tell you how.

The man hit it off really well with Bruce; the two spent half the lesson swapping horror stories about some of the hideous jury-rigged repairs they'd achieved in tight corners on their respective blockade runners.

By the end of the lesson, Harry and a blonde girl a bit of thought fingered as being a Gryffindor first year called Lavender Brownhad got a 125 dirtbike engine to run, Ron had assembled himself a laptop, Bruce had bragged an incredible amount, Tara had scrounged some unidentifiable parts that seemed to delight her, Alice had shown Hermione around the basics of a starship's power systems and Luna had launched a 30-megawatt fusion turbine clean through the roof 'just to see what happened'.

One thing was certain; they all definitely liked Rubens Hindenburg.

"A moment's word, Captain." Hindenburg said as they were leaving.

"What's up, mate?" Bruce asked, turning back round.

"Tell me… how did you know there was something wrong with that thruster?"

Bruce snorted.

"It didn't smell like it'd been run recently, the strip-down latch was loose, and I could see char on the A cable. Anything that chars a power feed is gonna shut the turbine down, pronto, and it's not firing up until it's fixed. And if someone managed to fire it with a loose strip-down latch, that's the turbine blowing a sixty-foot plasma fireball out the hole where the access hatch used to be."

"Aha. You're a very perceptive young man indeed."

"Thanks mate."

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"Who's your girlfriend?" Ben asked as the crew of them arrived in the Great Hall for lunch.

Harry blinked, having been engrossed in chatting said girl up.

"Guys, this is Lavender Brown. Lavender, the big New Aussie's Ben Chaos, the identical red-haired weirdoes are Fred and George Weasely, the Frognorfian's Fleggitt Marwillip Nelkroddly, and the bundle of pink is Michelle Chaos."

"Gudday." Several people said, or variants of.

"They're all in second year." Harry continued, arriving at where several people were compiling a table with enough room for the whole crew. "I know Ben and Michelle from way back."

"Denebian Slime Devil at thirty degrees. Ready your Nerf." S'tarak'hai said, jerking his head in the direction of the door.

In came Draco Malfoy. He looked distinctly upset, was limping, and his hair looked greaseir than Snape's. His familiar, obediently following him on her leash, looked like she was at a total dead loss for what to do or say.

"What's up with Malfoy's hair? And why's he walking kinda funny?" Lavender asked.

Harry made a theatrical sad expression. "Oh, he's just finding out that motorbikebike chain oil doesn't work as hair gel."

"Let me get this straight. You swapped his hair gel for chain lube?" Fred checked.

"And his deodorant got replaced with fly spray." Harry remarked.

"Well, someone Superglued all his socks and shoes to the ceiling." Fred gloomily replied. "Along with all his Y-fronts. It's terrible, the pranks people play around here."

Nodding at Draco's familiar's eyepatch, George smirked.

"Ain't karma a bitch?"

"Draco seriously wears _**Y-fronts**_?" Lavender asked.

"Yup." Fred told her.

Harry nodded, pulling out his Nerf guns. Ron, Hermione and Luna readied theirs; the quartet Nerfed Draco in unison, triggering every Gryffindor in the Great Hall to haul out their own Nerf guns and open up on the unfortunate Malfoy.

It rained Nerf in the Death Munchkin corner for several minutes.

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Draco was twitching slightly.

"Why does everyone keep Nerfing me?" he asked Goyle, who shrugged in a completely lost manner.

"It's because you poked your familiar's eye out." Michelle told him, bouncing past on her way to get another chair. "Ben and his mates didn't like that mate."

Draco started to growl at her, noticed Ben's expression and decided discretion was the better part of valour where the sisters of Jedi are concerned.

"I think it's time we got some paintball guns." Flint remarked.

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"OK, what have we got next?" Ron asked, salvaging Nerf.

"Lunch." Harry told him.

"I meant after lunch."

"A waste of time." Harry grumbled. "Fucking levitation? At least we're only stuck doing that crap until the October break, then they let us experiment with proper ballistic flight."

"Some of us think levitating sounds cool." Hermione remarked. Harry glowered at her.

"Hermione, it's one spell. _One fucking spell_, and they've dedicated a whole fucking class to it." he told her. "Okay, yes, it's a useful spell. But it's not _that_ useful. Levitating has a practical top speed about the same as running, tires you out just as fast, and the altitude limit is rather pathetic unless you're wearing a fucking vacuum suit. Give me a half-decent sled any day. The thing that really pisses me off is that they insist on teaching that claptrap to everyone, even if they're people like Tara and S'tarak'hai who can fly much better than that anyway!"

"You should see what they do the first day." Ben gloomily remarked. "They've got all this class hardware, like jetbikes, lift belts, even a flying fucking bedstead, sat around gathering dust – the first class consists of Madam Hooch ranting on about how much better magical flight is. She even claims it's 'better' than a classic skycycle like the Imperial jetbike they've got sitting around down there."

"They've got an Imperial jetbike? A jetbike as opposed to a speederbike, right?" Harry asked. Ben nodded, and Harry pursed his lips. "Hmm; intriguing, I may have to steal it."

"Stealing a jetbike from the collegium collection wouldn't be theft." Fred said. "It'd be liberating a poor neglected beast."

"You're telling me they've got an Imperial jetbike, _and nobody ever uses it_?" Harry asked, disgusted.

Fred, George, Ben, Michelle and Fleggitt all nodded.

"Well, I think Hindenburg occasionally tools around on some of them." Ben said.

"Damnit, now I'm going to be bound by skybiker's honour to rescue the poor neglected machine." Harry muttered.

"That's not even the start of it, old boy." Fleggitt told him. "Some of the machines they've got sat around bringing nobody joy are even more classic than an Imperial jetbike – get this, they have a Block 1 Craftworld jetcycle."

"Holy crap, that ought to be getting _used_, or at least in a museum getting appreciated, not gathering dust in a fucking collegium's to-be-mocked-mercilessly collection." Harry growled. "I knew they were fuckwits, but that takes the fucking cake."

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The flying class was to take place on the lawn in front of the castle, at one side of which were a row of garage-like buildings, at the other side of which was the car park. The garages were currently open, revealing hordes of odd looking vehicles that could presumably fly.

Harry started critically examining the vehicles.

"God **damn**. Ben was right when he said they'd got some classics… check this beast out! Northern Gun Sky King – just look at the armour on that beauty! Is that for real? Shit yeah, this thing's an Eldar pirate's Reaver jetbike! Woah, that's an old Stratos 4 powerboard – check this shit out, is that a genuine Coalition sky cycle? Damn! I keep seeing machines I want to steal." He suddenly smiled and picked up the least prepossessing of the lot.

It was a battered old broomstick, the sort made from a bundle of sticks tied around one end of a broomhandle. He held it out at about waist height, concentrated, and let go; the broom hung there in perfect silence; as he did that the tutor (one Madam Hooch) was introducing herself.

"Let's get to know each other better." Harry told the broom, and leapt, landing on it like it was a skateboard. The shoulderpads on his trenchcoat twitched and began blasting out hard-trance techno.

"Mr Johnson, what are you-" Madam Hooch started, but the broomstick shot off like a cat with a rocket sompleace cats really don't like having rockets, Harry still standing on it, flying like a bluebottle on angel dust.

At one point he started doing a flat spin so hard he was standing sticking straight sideways off the broom and laughing like a maniac; after a couple of minutes playing the fool he came zooming in to an easy halt, leapt off the broom, and let it settle back to the ground.

"Man, haven't had a go with one of those in ages." He said.

"Mr Johnson! Are you insane, jumping on one of those things and flying like that? There's a reason you're supposed to have a license – flying broomsticks are bloody dangerous, young man!" Madam Hooch barked.

Harry raised a finger in a 'one moment' gesture, rooted around in his pocket, and came out holding his wallet. He flicked through, selected a card, and handed it to Madam Hooch. She recognised it; it was a Thousand Kingdoms Aviation Authority pilot's license card.

She silently watched the holographic window full of all the kinds of flying vehicle Harry could pilot scroll past, becoming more and more boggled at the sheer variety; Harry was a licensed operator of pretty much anything airmobile, ranging from conventional fixed-wing aircraft to helicopters to tiltrotors to jetbikes to some seriously exotic hardware such as powerboards, flying carpets and, yes, flying broomsticks.

"Why," she asked, "Did you learn to operate such a range of vehicles?"

"I'm a mercenary. I never know when I might need to pilot something like a jet-propelled aerial surfboard to complete a job."

"Those were powerboarding moves!" Madam Hooch spluttered, suddenly realising exactly what Harry had been doing.

Harry shrugged. "I was an also-ran in the Supersurf last year." He said. "Didn't do to bad – I placed fifth, but Hell, with guys like Chopper, the Red Machine and Jug McKenzie in the starting line-up I might as well not have bothered showing up. I'm not a serious powerboarder like those guys; it's just something I did so I could say I did it. I want to steal some of these jetbikes. Or if you're willing to sell I'm willing to buy. I've ridden a Reaver; it's a crying fucking shame the way you've let this one just sit here. They're **beasts**. Fastest combat jetcycle ever constructed. My inner maniacal skybiker just **has** to have that bike. It's just _painful_, seeing it just sitting there with nobody to love it."

Madam Hooch nodded gloomily.

"I'll say." She said, earning a funny look from Harry.

"Well, why don't you use some of these beauties?" he asked.

She grimaced.

"I stuffed a Sentek into the dirt a while back and messed up my inner ear; I can't balance a jetcycle any more. I'm okay on solid ground or levitating, but…"

"Bummer." Harry said. "You ought to get a replacement."

"I would, but I've got acute CRS."

"Double bummer. That is just… nasty." Harry said, looking bummed.

"Yeah… I think we'd better get on with the class. You can have a go on some of my collection if you help maintain the poor things."

"Deal." Harry promptly said, and stopped obstructing the class.

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The rest of the levitation class passed quickly enough; by the end of it, Madam Hooch had everyone able to hover a few inches off the ground without machinery or the Kenti in the class using their wings, by which time Harry had seemingly become her unofficial assistant by proving to be as competent at levitating as she was, which made Hermione admit he might know what he was talking about. He and Lavender spent dinner time all over each other, then took off elsewhere; Hermione didn't realise they'd gone to Harry's room together, which is why she did what she did a bit later.

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Hermione ambled into Harry's room with a "Harry, I-"

She stopped dead in her tracks, both verbally and physically.

First off, she was now looking down the barrel of the biggest revolver she had ever seen; it had a bore of something like an inch and a half, vast enough that she could actually see the bullet down the barrel. For some reason Harry (who was of course holding the gun) was only wearing boxers and tank-top.

Secondly, the room wasn't the damn near empty cavern it had been last time she'd seen it. The bed had been shoved against one wall, and the desk against the other; this made room for a low Japanese-style coffee table and a couple of somewhat battered old sofas of the overstuffed leather kind you only normally see in pubs. Carla was lounging on the bed, dressed only in her collar and chain, alongside a butt-naked and seemingly-comatose Lavender, who had her hands tied firmly behind her back. A second table took up most of the rest of the wall that the desk occupied; on this table was perched a TriD, a games console and a set of shelves into which Harry's fast-growing collection of books had been crammed; an old ghetto blaster resided on the top shelf. A third, final table now resided in the gap between the bed and the portable cellar, approximately where the bed used to be; Harry's gun-cleaning kits and spare ammunition was stacked on this table, which had an old straight-backed wooden chair in front of it, and the walls were festooned with posters.

And there was weaponry _everywhere_. Not just handguns and swords, either – rifles, machine guns, even missile launchers, racks of lightsabres, mounds of ammunition boxes – enough firepower to have a damn good shot at starting another World War.

However, it was one particular gun her attention was centred on.

She said something that sounded like "!!!"

Harry blinked. "Oh, it's you." He put the gun back down on the table. "Do yourself a favour and knock next time."

"You nearly gave me a heart attack!" Hermione complained.

"Unintentional." Harry said. "There are quite a few people who want me dead for assorted reasons. After a certain number of assassination attempts, a sensible man develops certain security protocols. Such as pulling a gun on anyone who comes barging through the door."

"Figures." Hermione said. "Where'd you get all this _stuff_?"

"Piece from here, piece from there. Some I captured, some I stole, some I scrounged from a dump, some came out of Ben's dad's attic or Washuu's lab, some came out of Setsuna's junk room, and some of it, I used an ancient Chinese secret technique called Sh'hop Ping to… _**acquire**_." Harry explained. He then picked three objects up off the coffee table; these proved to be a hammer, a bag of nails and a wooden sign, which he proceeded to nail firmly to the outside of the door, hitting himself on the thumb and swearing a lot in the process.

Once Harry's hands (and hammer) weren't in the way, Hermione had a look at it. It read: 'Madman Omar's House of Missiles.'

"Are you sure it's okay for you to be nailing stuff to the door?"

Harry chuckled. "It's cool. I checked, the rules don't say anything about not nailing stuff to doors. They just say a student can do whatever they like with their room, no exceptions, as long as their room-mate doesn't mind. Since I've not got a room-mate, it's my call."

"I see."

"Besides, the main purpose of rules is for deciding what order you're gonna break 'em in. Now, I'm assuming you came here to talk about something specific, and my renovation probably wasn't it." He closed the door, lobbed the hammer into a corner, and sat down. "Take a seat."

Hermione sat down. "I wanted to ask you… well, you're so good at so much of this stuff, it's obvious you're already a fully-trained mage and it's obvious you don't much like this place."

Harry levelled an intense stare at Hermione.

"I get it." he said. "You want to know what I'm doing here."

"Well, yeah." Hermione admitted.

"I'm guessing you've read up on who and what my actual identity represents." He said; she nodded, thrown off track by this tangent. "Well, it's relatively simple. I hate this place, I hate the smug self-assured beardy bastard who runs it and I'm not exactly impressed with most of the people around here; the only saving graces are the odd source of intelligent conversation. But first off I'm being paid serious money to be here, second off this place has a substantial supply of attractive and promiscuous girls who dig the tall mysterious stranger type and are willing to experiment with bondage, and thirdly this place and it's people represent my best chance at an answer to the most pressing question of my life. What actually transpired in Godric's Hollow on that night in 1981?"

"What do you mean? Attacking and murdering people was just what that Vole-whatsisface guy did." Hermione said.

Harry shook his head. "No. The attack at Godric's Hollow was completely counter to Voldemort's modus operandi."

"Well, he was a madman."

"You're too intelligent to be taken in by that sort of stupid bullshit. Sure, Voldemort was a clinical psychopath, probably a sociopath and a megalomaniac too, but he was also the absolute worst type of psycho; calm, calculating, rational, entirely logical and brilliant. He was also a coward. Trust me, I know what I'm talking about; I've been researching that son-of-a-bitch for years." Harry lectured. "He had specific operational methods, all of them designed specifically with his own safety in mind. He never went on attacks; he had his goons bring people to him. When he had his thugs attack, they'd attack three or four places simultaneously, with only one being the actual target, and he relied on weight of numbers and hit-and-run tactics. When the Death Eaters hit something, they hit it like a ton of bricks, then vanished. Now, consider my father's reputation and combat record. Dad was involved with two skirmishes with the Death Eaters. In the first, he personally killed eighteen of the bastards; in the second he put paid to twenty-five. When he rescued Mom from them, he slaughtered sixty-eight, including six of Voldemort's deadliest subordinates. I've heard fighting Dad described as like going one-on-one with a tornado full of chainsaws, and I know for damn certain that most of the Death Eaters were as scared of Dad as they were of Voldemort. As for Mom, she was responsible for the deaths of fifty-seven Death Eaters throughout three separate fights, and she's one of exactly two people who are known to have injured Voldemort himself, me being the other one. So, given all that, why did Old Tom Mouldy go to Godric's Hollow in person and why didn't he take any backup? It's completely out of character, never mind breaking M.O."

Hermione stared at him for a long moment.

"You've just given me more information in a minute than I got reading six books." She said.

Harry snorted. "I'm not surprised. A lot of information about Voldemort was covered up; the MOMAOA was scared of copycats, so like a bunch of stupid fucks they strangled the possibility of people being prepared for that sort of terrorist tactics. So anyway, the question that's been preying on my mind ever since I found out about this shit is, what was so special about the Potter family that the bastard decided to go for us in person? I mean, I know he had Mom prisoner for three months while she was pregnant with me, and I know he experimented on her and me, but what exactly is the deal? Besides, he knew exactly where to find my folks, so why did he wait until Haloween '81? There's all sorts of questions I need answers for. Like why he shot Mom in the head with a sawn-off double-barrel positron rifle when I know for a fact that his standing orders were to take her alive. To understand all that, I'm going to need a clear picture of exactly what happened, and there aren't many people who know a anything about what was actually going on. They run to, Hagrid McDuff, Albus Dumbledore, some guy called Sirius Black whom I haven't been able to find out much of bugger all about, and of course the one and only Mouldy Voldey."

"Voldemort died." Hermione pointed out.

Harry spat. "Do you think a sorcerer of Voldemort's capability wouldn't have any contingency measures? Oh no, take my word for it, the bastard's alive. Have you seen the inside of Dumblefuck's office? The amount of detection equipment he's got in there? Something's got that man scared. Scared to the point that he's paying me seventy thousand New Australia dollars a day to be here. There's a bunch of ways to make sure you'd survive being blown into a wet red splat like Old Tom Mouldy. I've got no proof apart from a hint my daughter dropped the day she rescued me from the fat bastards Dumbledork left me with, but I'm damn certain the bastard's alive and kicking."

Someone banged on the door. Harry put his hand on his gun, and shouted, "Who goes there?"

"It's me, Ron." Came Ron's voice from the other side of the door.

"My name's not Ron." Harry shouted.

"Huh? What're you talking about? I'm Ron, you're Harry."

"Come on in, Ron. Just making sure it was really you."

Ron came clattering into the room looking confused.

"Well, who else would it be?"

Harry rolled his eyes. "Gimme a break, I've got a lot of enemies who'd be more'n happy to grab any opportunity to knock me off, and voice forgery isn't exactly big-budget technology. Powerful people make dangerous enemies, and when you've done a major empire a good turn by foiling the plots of another major empire, you end up with a target mark between your eyebrows. Some days it seems like every fuckwad with a gun, an itchy trigger finger and a one-digit IQ is gunning for me."

"I've figured it's the Kenti you did stuff for, but how did that piss someone off?" Ron asked.

Harry snorted. "I helped retrieve something from Nalfer space that belonged on Kendarat. Everything else about that op is a secret."

Ron blinked.

"Uh, okay." He said, then noticed something. "Hey, what's that?"

'That' was a birdcage containing a six-inch elf with feathered hummingbird-like wings.

"It's a pixie." Harry said.

Ron looked puzzled. "I thought pixies were annoying and blue?"

Harry chuckled. "There are several kinds of pixie. The Cornish pixie is indeed annoying and blue. The Pictsie or Nac Mac Feegle is normally likewise blue, but that's a mix of tattoos and woad; they're violent, somewhat Glaswegian and frequently drunk. This is a Calafornian pixie."

"So why exactly have you got a nude fairy in a birdcage and a vastly overgrown sniper rifle?" Hermione asked.

"The pixie's useful. A pixie can get in all sorts of places a guy like me can't. As for the big pea-shooter, it's a Mentler AV-DRKS, the most powerful man-portable weapon ever constructed. Accurate range of two and a half thousand kilometres, and it's powerful enough to crack a nuke shelter. S'tarak'hai's father gave me this as a little token of his respect."

"Er, what'd you use a gun like that for?"

"If you load it up with squash heads it's a good way of getting rid of any large buildings you don't like, and with kiloton warheads up the spout it'd become a quick and easy way of popping cities that pissed you off."

"That's… kinda scary, really." Hermione admitted. "Why've you got a gun that powerful here?"

"Firstly, it's the most powerful man-portable weapon ever constructed; of course I keep it close to me, I don't want to risk any bloody idiot stealing the thing. Secondly, it's the most powerful man-portable weapon ever constructed; is it not nifty? And thirdly, it's the most powerful man-portable weapon ever constructed; I never know when I might need to completely splatter everything within a few miles, or blow up starships in orbit from the surface. Or blow up a city for that matter."

"You mean you've got nuclear warheads for that thing?" Ron squeaked.

"Actually, they're not nukes. They're mass-energy conversion bombs. No annoying radiation, no fallout, and they take up less space. You wouldn't be able to fit a nuclear bomb in a fifty millimetre gun barrel."

"You are completely mental, you know that man? Anyway, me and the twins and some of their mates are heading down the pub, I thought I'd see if you wanted to come along-with." Ron said.

Harry nodded.

"Think I will. Is Granger invited?"

Ron nodded. "Sure. We're going to plan a whole load more stuff to do to Malfoy, the more people the better."

Harry nodded again, and looked at Hermione.

"I think you should come with us." He said.

"I think I will. I just gotta go get changed." She said.

Harry chuckled.

"I and Carla need to get dressed, and we need to wake up Lavender and get her untied and dressed. We'll meet you in the forecourt shortly. Oh, and Granger? Ask Ben for a lift."

Hermione nodded and headed for her room as Ron zoomed off to tell the others Harry was coming.

Harry waited until they were gone, then looked at Carla and shook his head.

"Kiloton warheads, mental?" he mused. "Just wait till the poor bastard sees my planet buster."

**End Chapter.**

Next – A night down the boozer, and Dumbledore opens his big mouth.

AN – Holy crapola, I'm writing unnervingly fast. I just posted chapter 9 yesterday. It's partly because I've got a lot of chunks of the pre-Haloween stages of Headmaster's Socks written out in bits and pieces (I basically arranged and linked together eight scenes to make this chapter) and partly because this thing is just _flowing_, a feeling I love. I don't know how long I'll be able to maintain this rate of writing, so I'm just enjoying it while it lasts.

EDIT - OOOPS! I forgot to post chapter 9 yesterday; uploaded but didn't update the story. DUH!

I am chuffed to bits someone caught the Miyazaki reference in chapter 7. Just for a visual cue, the speederbike is the sort from Star Wars, in particular the design ridden by Imperial scouts. Talking of references, every flying device named in the scene about the flying class is a reference. Even the bedstead.

If you're thinking why Lavender was tied up in Harry's bed involved kinky sex, you'd be thinking along the right lines. Yes, Harry works fast. No, there was no dirty tricks involved in him getting Lavender into bed so fast – just a guy who knows what he wants and knows exactly how to get it.

The sequence with Harry telling Hermione why he's at Hogwarts was actually the first scene I wrote for Headmaster's Socks; it basically spawned the whole story.

And yes, Draco is going to get Nerfed, pranked, paintballed, shot with a cattle marking gun and otherwise made very miserable a lot over the coming chapters.


	11. Chapter 11

**This ain't no self-insert fic.**

**This ain't no slash fic neither.**

**This is Top Dog.**

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Arriving at the car park, Hermione had a look around to see if she could spot Ben; she spotted Michelle first, and headed for the bouncy half-Kenti in the assumption that she'd be with Ben. This assumption rapidly proved correct; Ben Chaos was leaning against an obnoxiously large bright orange car.

"You needing a lift?" he asked, seeing Hermione jogging over. Now she was closer, Hermione could see Fred and George in the car's back seats.

"Please." She said. Ben grinned and let her into the car. It was just as big inside as out, and had that 60's American look.

"Nice car." She said, tucking herself into the central back seat between the duo of Weaselys.

"Thanks, sheila." Ben said, grinning broadly as he shut the door and leant in through the open T-top. "She's a 1968 Dodge Charger RT, fully authentic, somewhat modified. Her name's Big Boss; Dad gave her to me as a congrats prezzie after I passed me Trial."

Michelle popped through the passenger window and dropped into the seat. Ben grinned and waggled his eyebrows, then likewise came popping in through the window; he turned the key as soon as his butt hit the seat.

The car came to life with a roar like rolling thunder, the supercharger sucking air with an audible slurp; the bodyshell began gently rocking from the immense torque of the gigantic V-8 engine under the front.

"Man, she still sounds just as wicked!" Fred shouted. Hermione caught Harry's bike appearing in it's grid-lines fashion. There were the roars of more engines coming to life around them.

Ben leant out of the window.

"LAST ONE THERE BUYS THE FIRST ROUND!" he yodelled, put the hammer down, and dumped the clutch. Big Boss's back wheels were spinning almost immediately; the grinning New Aussie nutcase guided the big car to slide neatly round and, just as the tyres gripped, catapult out of the gates.

Michelle triggered the stereo.

There was a roar, and Harry's bike blasted past standing on it's back wheel, fire blasting from it's exhausts, Harry standing up in the saddle with Lavender clinging to his back.

"Wicked machine." Ben remarked, kicking up a wheel as the car charged through the sharp dog-leg before the gates; they was out onto the road to Hogsmeade with all four wheels in midair as the car cleared the rise.

"This is fucking cuckoo!" Hermione complained.

"No worries sheila!" Ben shouted. "Doc Washuu fitted her patent crash survival shields, she'll be right! You couldn't total this car even if you stuffed her into the front of a road-train at two hundred kays per aych!"

"That's the only reason they ever let Ben drive." Michelle helpfully provided, not in the least perturbed by the way the car seemed to perform a barrel roll as Ben slalomed it around a passing bus.

"I'm not that bad!" Ben complained.

"Who got banned on six different planets?" Michelle checked.

"I dunno sheila, it can't have been me, I never had a license on one planet, never mind six. Crikey, can't that bloke see I'm driving here?"

"You are completely fucking insane." Hermione repeated.

"No worries sheila!" Ben yelled, ramping the car over a sheep.

"Crikey mate, that's one startled sheep!" Michelle said.

"Their dad once went so insane he thought he was a tram." Fred remarked. "Ben's just plain bonkers, and Michelle likes everyone."

"The Chaos family are crrrrrraaaaazzzzzy people!" George agreed.

"I've met one bloke I didn't like, that New Atlantean ambassador bloke, he was creepy." Michelle said.

"That's because he was busy refusing to believe you're sentient." Ben told her.

"Watch out for the deer!" WHACK!

"No worries sheila, that's what roo bars are for. Move over, Bambi!"

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Arriving at the local pub, an establishment by the name of the Crown and Anchor, normally known as the Clown and Wanker, Big Boss disgorged two blasé Chaoses, two hyper Weaselys and one frazzled Granger, who were met by Harry and Lavender, who already had beers.

"Took your time." Harry remarked.

"Crikey mate you're fast!" Ben boggled.

The others arrived in closely-spaced dribs and drabs, with the Walkers last in their mangled old ute.

They trooped inside, commandeered a table, the latecomers bought a round (and gave Harry the fiver for he and Lavender's beers) and many people lit up smokes. S'tarak'hai thoughtfully contemplated Harry and Lavender. As well as being wind-blasted by the motorcycle wild ride, the blonde girl seemed a bit dazed, had an oddly smug expression and had been walking a bit strangely.

"You never change, do you Johnson?" the big catman asked, ducking under a ceiling beam and seating himself at the table they'd selected.

"If it ain't broke, don't fix it." Harry said. "If it works, it ain't broke."

"You're a randy bastard." S'tarak'hai said, and took a slug of his pint. "And a spawny git."

Harry shrugged. "Guys gotta do what a guy's gotta do."

"What are you two talking about?" Bruce asked, sounding a touch narked.

S'tarak'hai indicated Lavender's dazed-but-smug demeanour.

"The expression on her face. It's not the first time I've seen it, and it won't be the last. While he was staying in R'harash'gai't'rath, we used to go out drinking every night. Every fucking night he scores some random bird, often a landwarrior who really ought to know better, and the next day they've all got the same slightly dazed-but-satiated expression. Sometimes as many as three girls in one day. We used to call him Shai'terata Johnson."

"Sex Bomb Johnson?" Tara asked, highly amused.

"Johnson doesn't just have a girl in every port." S'tarak'hai told her. "In most ports he's got several girls. In some ports he's got all the girls."

Hermione looked at Lavender.

"Um, you know about this, right?" she asked, puzzled.

"Of course." Lavender said.

"What do you take me for, Granger?" Harry complained. "Look, not being up-front about something like having up to thirty girlfriends at a time is only going to cause a headache. When Lavender here started trying to get into my pants, I was like, here's the deal, like it or lump it."

"And I'm cool with it." Lavender said, taking a swig of beer.

"So anyway, enough about my sex life." Harry said, slapping the table. "We've got a bleach-blonde bastard to plot the downfall of. First off, I say we coordinate our efforts. For example, glueing his socks and shoes to the ceiling would have been better independent of my swapping his hair gel and deodorant. How about this; I take the odd days, you guys take the even days."

"Works for me." Fred and George chorused.

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**Disclaimer: **

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**Top Dog: Enter the Fnords**

**Book 1: Harry Johnson and the Headmaster's Socks.**

**A Doghead13 / United Galaxies fanfic**

**Written & produced by Calum J 'Doghead13' Wallace**

**Brought to you by Hairy Scottish Git Productions, GMBH**

**This is not a drill.**

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**Chapter 11: A darker shade of white**

**(In which some colours are shown)**

"Albus, may we speak?"

Dumbledore looked up from his paperwork, seeing Snape calmly watching him from the doorway.

"Ah, Severus, I was just thinking about you; come in and take a seat, do. Lemon drop?"

"No Thankyou." Snape said, sitting down on one of the available sofas. Dumbledore had got them from a Hogsmeade pub that had closed down some years before; they were red leather and battered to perfect comfort.

"Albus," he said, "I earlier overheard a rather interesting conversation between Mr Flint, Mr LeStrange, and several of their friends, in the Slytherin common room. It would seem that they have the distinct good judgement to be as unimpressed with Mycroft's teaching as I am."

"And I too, Severus. Sadly, he was all we could find." Dumbledore gloomily admitted. "With the rather dire reputation the post has gained…"

"Albus, I-"

"No, Severus. I need you too much in your current post."

Snape sighed and shook his head.

"Anyway, I wanted to talk to you." Dumbledore said. "You really shouldn't push Harry quite so-"

"After my past with that obnoxious little mudblood bastard's father, whenever I look at him all I see is James goddamned Potter." Snape interrupted, his voice flat and emotionless. "I'm sorry, Albus. But that subject is not open for discussion." He sprung to his feet, spun round and marched out.

Dumbledore stared after him, absolutely stunned.

"What's wrong with you, Severus? This isn't like you!"

Snape didn't answer.

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After about the third round, the subject had drifted to wild tales.

"That's when Lu Tze says, 'Jason? Where?' and spins round." Harry ranted, waving his arms. "And since he's still holding his vibropike, it goes BANG, right into the back of Jason's thrusterpack."

"Oh **crap**." Tara murmured.

"So the thrusterpack suddenly goes to full throttle and he goes flying. BANG! He bounces off the side of Old Hellfire, _totally_ out of control, and I've got no idea **how** the hail of fire the jimcracks were sending his way didn't manage to hit him," Harry continued.

"Oh _God_ I see where this is leading." Alice groaned.

"Then he manages to hit the emergency release on his thrusterpack's straps; it goes rocketing off into the jimcrack rear lines and cooks off it's turbines digging a nice big hole, and Jason is left tracing a parabola right back over the barricades, nearly getting shot down by Jerry who thought he was a missile," Harry continued.

"Gods…" Bruce moaned.

"And SPLAT!" Harry gesticulated wildly. "Head first into the cesspit!"

"I knew it." Hermione muttered.

"Aw _**yuck**_." Lavender said. "That's just… _nasty_."

"Yeah, nobody would stand downwind of Jason for weeks. He still hasn't completely forgiven Lu Tze." Harry agreed. "Your turn, Ben."

"Aw crikey mate… kay, how about the story of the time Dad got drunk at a barbecue and it ended up taking down three planetary governments?"

"You told that one five minutes ago." S'tarak'hai growled.

"I've got one." Hermione said.

"Go for it." Ben told her.

"Well, last year at the Rock and Blues they had unimotorcycle racing, right? Well, my uncle Stan turned up with a trailerload of parts on the back of his hog, with the idea being to make and race a unimotorcycle from them…

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The night continued; beer flowed, everyone got steadily more and more drunk, and the stories got wilder. Harry and Ben had a head-to-head bullshitting contest, each attempting to invent the wilder story, which Ben won. At midnight the pub closed, and they were tossed out into the crisp cool Scottish night; getting home in one piece became the question.

Eventually, Harry and S'tarak'hai ferried everyone (and everyone's vehicles) home as they were the only two who weren't blind drunk

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Harry laid Lavender on his bed, and bemusedly shook his head. The girl was seriously pissed; normally when he had a woman in this state on his hands he'd take her back to her place and put her to bed, but he didn't actually know which was Lavender's room.

"Joy. I just hope she doesn't spew." He grumbled. "Man, if I'd realised she was such a lightweight…"

"You're used to your resistance to booze, Master." Carla remarked. "Duh."

"Don't take that tone with me, girl." Harry grabbed a box off one shelf, opened it, selected a vial, sat down beside Lavender, pinched her nose causing her mouth to flop open, and poured it down her throat.

She groaned. "Eeeurffd! Thad's disguzdig! Leggo ob by dose!"

Harry chuckled and let go of her nose.

"That's alcohol nullifier potion." He said. "Didn't want you spewing, you were fucked out your brain."

"You should have ravished me while you had the chance." She replied, pulling a face. "Egads, that stuff tasted awful!"

"I've still got a chance." Harry said, putting the box back on the shelf and advancing menacingly on her, a playful grin putting the lie to the menacing posture.

Someone knocked on the door.

Harry grabbed his E-Mag, aimed it at the door, said, "Come in." and rolled silently sideways to the other side of the table.

The door opened, and in walked Albus Dumbledore.

"You? What the bloody hell do you want at this time of night?" Harry asked, not lowering the gun.

"Please stop aiming that firearm at me, Harry." Dumbledore said.

Harry snorted.

"It's quarter to midnight and you decide to pop in. How do I know it's really you, old man? Assassins seem to have a thing about this sort of time."

"Well, I do in fact know your actual identity; Harry James Sirius Logan Fawcett Evans-Potter." Dumbledore said. Lavender went completely slack-jawed and pop-eyed; Harry sighed and put the gun back in its holster.

"And thanks for blowing my cover. OK, I'll bite. What the bloody hell do you want at this time of night, old man?"

"I believe we need to discuss something sooner rather than later, Harry." Dumbledore said.

"Oh?" Harry asked.

"Yes. Why exactly have you brought nuclear-level warheads into the Collegium? Aren't things dangerous enough already?"

Harry stared at him for a long moment.

"I beg your pardon?" he asked.

"Those 50mm mass-energy conversion bombs." Dumbledore said.

"Do I look stupid?" Harry asked.

"What? No." Dumbledore said, puzzled.

"It's just you seem to think I'm a moron." Harry said. "Let's get this straight. I have a few mass-energy conversion warheads. Somehow you know about them, and I don't appreciate being spied on, but let's leave that for a moment. We're talking about devices equivalent in explosive force to a thousand tons of nitro-glycerine, and you think I'm stupid enough to leave them laying around where any fuckwad could steal them? Those things don't come with arming codes; you pull the safety pin out of the detonator, load them into your big gun, fire, and BOOM, instant mushroom cloud. Do I really look dim enough to risk those things getting stolen?"

"I see."

"No you don't. You're just like all those anti-war fuckwits. Some of us understand the simple realities of this universe, old man. Let he who would have peace prepare for war."

Dumbledore shut his eyes for a long moment; remembered pain stained his face, and he looked like a tired old man when he opened them.

"I am not from Earth." He said. "I am from a planet by the name of Ryanev, in a disputed system on the south-western frontier between Kenti and New Atlantean space. The Nalfers dropped an anti-matter planet buster on the planetary capital city during my final year here in Hogwarts; they blew the entire biosphere into dust. Out of my home system's entire population only I and my twin brother Aberforth survived. The next day, I signed up; I was a Third Legion spellwarrior in the fifth war between the Thousand Kingdoms and New Atlantis. I am the most highly decorated non-Kenti in the history of Her Radiant Majesty's Armed Forces. When my tour of duty was over, I was offered a job as Assault Magecraft tutor here in Hogwarts; I accepted at once. I remained in that post until 1922, whereupon I became headmaster on the retirement of the previous incumbent. In 1938 I was recruited by Abraham Van Helsing to assist in the war against Hitler and Himmeller, both of whom I am sad to say were alumni of this Collegium. I personally killed Himmeller, the man also known as Lord Grindlewold, earning myself the Victoria Cross, and using now illegal mind control techniques I made Hitler kill his own family then himself; that was the year before the Imperius curse was made illegal. I am ashamed of what I did to Hitler, but you must understand, his minions used the Imperius to make my wife kill herself and all but one of our children; our eldest son Radanel was later shot down and killed by the Luftwaffe over Normandy. No, Harry. I understand the truths of war just as well as you. I am not vastly bothered by your possessing those warheads, though I admittedly wish such weapons had never been created. What concerns me is their presence in a college building. I understand your reasoning, but please, make damn sure nobody can get at them. Some of your fellow students are frankly idiots."

Harry snorted.

"You're not going to leave me alone until you're satisfied, are you? They're in a portable hole that Carla's currently wearing."

"… I beg your pardon?"

Harry snorted. "I've got several portable holes. One of them is built into Carla's skirt. She's a top-specification military-grade killer doll; guarding my most dangerous possessions is what she exists for."

"I see." Dumbledore said, standing up. "And one other thing, Harry; make sure you don't get any of your fellow students pregnant."

"Get the fuck out of here, old man." Harry said in a level and dangerous voice. "I am not a little boy; you made fucking sure of that. Get the Hell out of here before I cap you."

Suddenly realising how much he'd pissed Harry off, Dumbledore hastily withdrew.

"What was all that about?" Lavender asked. "Harry… have you really got nuclear bombs?"

Harry glared at Carla.

"Cellar." He commanded. She hurriedly got out the portable hole; a few moments later, Harry had a bug-sweeping kit in his hands.

Having checked the room, he sat back with a frown on his face.

"Shit. Now I need to find out which of those two grassed on me."

He selected a bottle from the shelf of such in his portable cellar, measured out two precise quantities into small vials, and dropped them into his left outside pocket, then cleaned the measure and repeated it with another bottle; these two went into his right pocket.

"Both of you stay here." He ordered, and with that he prowled out, a hunter in search of his prey.

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Hermione was finishing a book before bed, glad she'd only had a small amount to drink. Ron was probably not going to enjoy Thursday's classes. Tara was already passed out curled up in a little bundle.

Hearing a knock, she called, "Come in."

The door opened, and in came Harry.

"Hi, Harry." She said, then noticed his expression. "What's wrong?"

Harry sat down opposite her and put a small bottle on the table.

"This is veritaserum, Hermione." He said. "Someone's passing on the contents of my private conversations to the old fart. You are one suspect, Ron Weasely is the other. He asked me about things only you and Ron should know about, and yes I did check for bugs. Veritaserum is a powerful truth serum. I want you to take it, and then I will ask you some simple question. If the answer is a no, I will then give you the antidote."

"There aren't any side effects are there?" she asked, dubiously picking the serum up.

"Nothing major. You'll have trouble lying for a few days, perhaps three tops, but that's it." Harry told her. She nodded and drank it without hesitating.

Harry's frown cleared a little.

"Did you tell anyone about my conversion bombs?" Harry asked.

"No." Hermione said.

"Did you write anything down about my conversion bombs, perhaps in a diary or journal?"

"No, my diary is just keeping track of homework."

"Did you mention nuclear weaponry in connection to the AV-DRKS sniper rifle at any time?"

"No, and I'm not really sure what an AV-DRKS is."

"Did you discuss my heavy weaponry with Ron?"

"Only the brief conversation we had with you."

Harry smiled briefly and handed her another vial.

"Thanks. That's the antidote." He stood up, muttering darkly.

"What are you gonna do now?" Hermione asked.

"Find Ron Weasely and find out what the Hell he thought he was doing. I'm sorry about this. Later."

With that, Harry walked out.

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Ron surfaced, finding himself laying on a table in what looked to be an abandoned lecture hall. His jaw was sore and he felt a bit dizzy as well as drunk; Harry was sitting on the next table over and glaring at him.

"Oww, you didn't need to punch me out, man." Ron grumbled.

Harry snorted.

"I don't know that yet, Weasely. Someone ratted me out to the old fart. It wasn't Hermione, and you're the only other person who was there. Drink this; it's veritaserum."

"It wasn't me." Ron said, accepting the vial, the drunkenness suddenly unpleasent. "I promise it wasn't me." He drank the potion.

"Did you tell anyone about my conversion bombs?" Harry asked.

"No." Ron said. "I don't backstab my mates."

"Did you write anything down about my conversion bombs, perhaps in a diary or journal?"

"No, don't keep one."

"Did you mention nuclear weaponry in connection to the AV-DRKS sniper rifle at any time?"

"Yes, whenever me and the twins have a gun argument someone is sure to bring up the fact that the AV-DRKS can chamber conversion warheads."

"Did you discuss my heavy weaponry with Hermione?"

"Only if you count that chat we had with you."

Harry nodded and handed him another vial.

"Here; the antidote" He said. "Sorry about that… goddamnit, how the Hell is that bastard spying on me?"

"It could be the house elves." Ron suggested, rubbing at his jaw. "Jeez, you really slugged me one."

"Sorry. I thought you'd ratted me out to Dumbfuck." Harry paused. "Ron, you're drunk. Come on back my room, I've got something you can use to sober up and avoid getting a hangover tomorrow."

"Yeah? Cool." Ron said, lurching a bit as he got up.

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Lavender watched bewilderedly as Harry came in with a semi-aware Ron half-draped on his shoulder. The youngest Weasely brother was obviously as drunk as a skunk.

"Oh dear." She said.

Harry deposited Ron on the sofa, collected the box, extracted a vial, put the box away, and poured the contents of the vial into Ron's mouth.

"EURGH!" Ron complained, awake and sober. "That tastes like barf!"

Harry chuckled.

"Wages of sin, Weasely. Think you can find your way to bed?"

"Yecch! Yeah, god man, isn't there something that can stop that tasting so bad? Yeah, I'll be okay now."

"Get yourself to bed." Harry advised; Ron grinned and departed, rubbing at his somewhat tender jaw.

Harry turned and contemplated Lavender for a moment. "We can no longer trust anything said within this room to stay private." He told her, sitting down on the bed beside her. "I don't know how, but the old man's spying on me. Shit, I know for damn sure only Granger and Weasely heard me talking about the kiloton shells – how the hell did that old bastard find out about 'em? But I digress. Which room are you in?"

"G304, why? Do you really have nukes?" Lavender asked.

Harry nodded. "The ones in question are some 50mm grav railgun shells, each rated at one kiloton, for when you absolutely positively _have_ to make a huge fucking hole."

"The headmaster was right that it's scary." Lavender told him. "Harry… are you really _that_ Harry?"

Harry nodded.

"Yeah, that's me." He said. "Chalk up another reason for me to be annoyed at the old man."

"No." Lavender admitted. "Harry, you… you're really Harry Potter?"

"Yeah." Harry repeated. "Not what you expected, am I?"

"I… wow." She smiled shakily at him. "I mean, it's cool having like the biggest hero in Clanspace for a boyfriend, even though I've got to share. You know, polygamy isn't that unusual outside of mundane Earth, and I'm interested."

"Especially for us Thousand Kingdoms citizens." Harry told her. She looked shocked all over again; he pulled a passport out of his pocket and showed her it.

The picture showed him, head cocked slightly, staring at the holocamera with a maniacal grin on his face; it was indeed a Kenti passport, and it even listed his home planet as Kendarat.

"How did you get a real Kenti passport?" Lavender asked.

"I was given it by Queen Rialia R'harash'gai the Twelfth herself." Harry told her. "I helped rescue her youngest daughter from the Nalfers a couple of years back; she was somewhat grateful. But anyway, I'm just as aware of the galactic marriage traditions as you are. If or when I get a first wife she will not be you; I've got K'tarag'jal R'hara'tath trying to marry me off to one of his many exceptionally dangerous daughters and I've said 'yes but not yet'."

"Wow." Lavender said, even more impressed. "You're amazing… you really should watch out, you're likely to completely overawe girls with all those names you drop… or is that the idea? Harry, why haven't you accepted the offer from the R'hara'taths? Just, you know, wondering."

"It's because I'm a mercenary." Harry said. "I mainly work for the Thousand Kingdoms and I won't work against them – I like those people – but I've been known to do work for all sorts of people. Marrying into Prathi R'hara'tath would intrinsically join me to the Prathi's structure, thereby limiting my available customers."

Lavender nodded.

"You'll have to decide some day, you know." She said. "It's obvious you and S'tarak'hai are best friends; I think you should eventually let them talk you into becoming family."

Harry looked at her for a long moment, then chuckled. "I may have to talk to your parents about the possibility of purchasing you."

"Most girls would be freaking out right about now." Lavender told him.

"I take it you're not most girls." Harry said.

"Not really." Lavender admitted. "I mean, normally I'd be completely freaked out, but I know you're kidding."

Harry let out a low chuckle and looped an arm around her shoulders.

"Whatever helps you get to sleep at night." He said, casually picking something up. "I'm sorry, Lavender, but I don't trust you with my identity; that information could get us both killed and you're a ditzy chatterbox, so I'm going to have to erase a small portion of your memories. I'm afraid in the morning you'll wake up in your bed with no idea of what happened after the fifth beer; after all, you were paralytic drunk."

Lavender suddenly got it as she realised what he was holding; a spiral pendant carved from New Zealand jade.

A spell focus.

"Please, no!" she gasped, trying to pull away; but the arm round her shoulders became vice-tight, keeping her down. "I won't-"

"Petrificus Totalus. Diffindo. Oblivius."

Harry stared at the paralysed, unconscious girl with the hole in her memory for a long moment.

"Sorry, kid." He murmured. "But I didn't have a whole lot of choice."

"So… are you going to have that chat with her parents?" Carla asked.

Harry chuckled quietly.

"Perhaps." He picked Lavender up and slung her across his shoulder. "Stay here; I'll be back in a moment."

End Chapter.

Next – Classes resume as Dumbledore tries to digest what he's heard.

AN – Whelp, short chapter. I needed it to start and end where it did, and couldn't get it to stretch any more. Oh well.

To imagine Ben's car, one must do the following;

Step 1 – Take the car from 'Dukes of Hazzard'.

Step 2 – Remove the stickers so it's painted plain orange.

Step 3 – Fit a fully-blown roo bar in place of that mini bullbar.

Step 4 – Put the supercharger off Mad Max's car on the top of the engine.

Step 5 – Fit a T-top.

Step 6 – Give it to a New Aussie nutter Jedi.

You have Big Boss.

The Crown and Anchor is actually one of the two pubs in Findhorn. It is not a good pub, thus the nickname 'Clown and Wanker'. Oh, and it's the only pub I've ever heard of where the landlord got banned from his own pub.

Smoking in pubs is illegal in Scotland. However, that's only been the case since mid last year. Back in '96, the no-smoking nanny law was a decade off.

Here in the UK, 'Randy' means just the same as 'Horny'. Offline I know an American guy called Randy Klinger. Least fortunate name in Morayshire.

Gun arguments are a form of bullshitting contest myself and my brother used to take part in. It would start with one of us saying something stupid. The other would turn round and go something like, 'Bang, 9mm Beretta'. The other would go, 'Uzi.' Then back to the other; 'M16'. The whole point was to stay about that close together in terms of firepower and be the one who referenced the biggest possible gun; the wider the range of weaponry you referenced the better your chances of being the one who got to the ICBM. It was utterly pointless and usually engaged in while drunk, and often came to a halt by passing the trailer ('See that trailer? It used to be Dad's!') or arriving either at the pub or home.

No this is not a Harry/Lavender fic. Note that Harry didn't wipe any part of Hermione, Artemis or Blaise's memories; this is not a mistake. Besides, there aren't that many people who began a lifetime relationship in their teens. The fact of the matter is that Harry is only interested in Lavender as a sex object.


	12. Chapter 12

**This ain't no self-insert fic.**

**This ain't no slash fic neither.**

**This is Top Dog.**

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Hermione didn't sleep at all well, and at about six o'clock she gave up and got up. The Gryffindor hangout seemed a bit weird completely empty, so she wandered down to the Great Hall, finding it likewise abandoned, then out through the front door to the courtyard.

The crackle of gunfire attracted her attention; after peering around, she isolated it's source as being the firing range she'd heard about.

Wondering who was making all the racket, she wandered down there and found an answer in the form of Harry.

He had a gun in each hand, and was blasting away at a row of moving targets, firing so fast it sounded almost like a machine gun; just as Hermione thought that, the guns went silent.

Their barrels were glowing. That explained the bulky heat sinks.

"You're up unusually early." Harry remarked, putting the pair of guns down on the table beside the range lane. "Trouble sleeping?"

"Yeah. After you showed up, I just wasn't tired any more." She said.

Harry looked faintly embarrassed. "Ah. That's the veritaserum; one of its key ingredients is caffeine. Would you believe I was so narked I forgot veritaserum's the equivalent of six cups of double-strength espresso?" He picked his guns up, reloaded them, and holstered them.

"… well, that explains that." Hermione said, slightly taken aback.

"My bad." Harry said, and headed for the castle.

Hermione wandered along with him.

"So… did Ron talk to Dumbledore?" she asked.

"No." Harry said. "I swept my room for bugs, but didn't find anything… the old fart must have some sort of surveillance up on me. I _would_ suspect it's a directional mike in his room, it's directly opposite mine, but I've been running a white noise generator since day one. The net result is we can't trust anything said in my room to stay private. I'm trying to work out how that interfering old bastard's spying on me, but until I do we have to watch what we say. If you don't think he'd approve of something, do me a favour and say it in writing."

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S'tarak'hai R'hara'tath was in an unusually good mood. In other words, by anyone else's standards he was angry and depressed.

He came slouching up from the Slytherin dorms along with Ben and Michelle Chaos, Artemis Fowl, and Fleggitt Nelkroddly. The quintet represented the leadership of the Slytherin rebels; the group who didn't either toe the blood purist line or stay on the sidelines. Several other half-blood or mundane-born Slytherins were clustered around them; to anyone of the non-pureblood kind in House Slytherin, the massive Kenti landwarrior and the lanky New Australian Jedi represented their best chances of making it through the year in one piece. If that meant alliance with their supposed enemies in House Gryffindor, so be it.

As they arrived in the Great Hall, someone else was entering through the big doors that led to the courtyard; Harry and Hermione.

Harry was sauntering along with his usual cocky smirk on his face, while Hermione was trailing along behind him wearing an expression like she'd been hit with a sledge hammer.

S'tarak'hai smiled slightly as he cottoned on to what had happened; Hermione must have watched Harry working out. She'd now have a rough idea of what he was really capable of; but not the whole works. Harry very rarely showed his full hand; S'tarak'hai was convinced the long-eared mercenary was capable of things even Thousand Kingdoms Intelligence had no idea of, simply because letting anyone get a full handle on his capabilities was a most un-Harrylike amateur's mistake.

They settled themselves at the usual table (which had now grown to three tables pushed together) as the Blink Doggers arrived; Tara was mussed-up and obviously hung over. Ron, already sat at the table, was surprisingly clear-eyed considering how drunk he'd been the previous night.

"Morning." S'tarak'hai said, setting his tray down and seating himself, idly wishing the collegium had larger seats as he did his best to squeeze his sizeable backside onto the rather too small chair.

Tara growled at him. Bruce said, "Gudday."

"Note to self." Alice remarked. "Don't take Nav out drinking on a class night again."

"Shut up, Skipper. My head is killing me." Tara growled.

Harry handed her a hip flask.

"Here; hangover killer. It tastes like shit, but it'll clear yer head."

"Thanks." Tara said, took a slug from the flask, made a disgusted noise, and started looking relieved.

"Hi guys." Luna remarked, arriving and settling herself beside S'tarak'hai as per usual; Katarina started wandering round the table and trying to scrounge sausages.

"What've we got today?" Hermione asked since nobody had partaken of the ritual question.

"Bestiary, then Assault Magecraft." Harry said. "Another waste of time this morning, then the most interesting subject on the curriculum for the afternoon."

"The Destructive Arts." Tara gloated. "This is gonna be **cool**."

"Ah, the main gist of why I am here; the fine art of blowing things into small blobs." S'tarak'hai contemplatively remarked.

"Don't raise your hopes." Fred gloomily stated. "Quirrel's a moron."

"It's downright painful listening to him trying to talk." George put in.

"Worst stutter in known history." Fred agreed.

"It takes him five minutes to say his own name." George added.

"And he doesn't know what he's talking about." Ben said.

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**Disclaimer: It's not my goddamn planet! Understand, monkey boy?**

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**Top Dog: Enter the Fnords**

**Book 1: Harry Johnson and the Headmaster's Socks.**

**A Doghead13 / United Galaxies fanfic**

**Written & produced by Calum J 'Doghead13' Wallace**

**Brought to you by Hairy Scottish Git Productions, GMBH**

**This is not a drill.**

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**Chapter 12: Blood of a distant star**

**(In which Hell's Halitosis occurs)**

As Harry had said, that first Bestiary class wasn't much of anything; the lecturer, one Professor Kettleburn, spent the morning giving the students a whirlwind tour of the facilities; Harry had completely ignored everything apart from Lavender and a pair of Asian girls named Padma and Parvati Patil, whom he unashamedly hit on.

Hermione had done her best to pay attention despite the distraction. It seemed Beast Mastery was a very unorthodox sphere of magecraft, but apparently under high demand.

("Beast Mastery," Kettleburn had explained, "Is not a skill. It is a talent. You either have it, or you do not. If you do, congratulations, in seven years you'll be able to get the highest-paid job in the galaxy. If not, tough shit. This class is here to find out. Besides, knowing how to avoid getting yourself killed around large dangerous animals is always useful.")

Walking back up to the Great Hall, Hermione chuckled a bit as she thought back to that. Draco had pointedly asked why one shouldn't just, you know, Flare Arrow any dangerous animals, and got a short but pointed lecture about protected species, especially concerning Earther dragons and big cats. Kettleburn had also explained that if one ran into a large dangerous Earther animal these days, one had better not harm it as it probably had shapeshifter relatives who would take a significantly violent dim view of some stupid human doing in their non-sentient half-siblings.

"What's the joke?" Harry asked. He had a Patil on each arm, much to Hermione's aggravation.

"Malfoy's expression when Professor Kettleburn chewed him out." She said, trying not to let Harry's blatant womanising annoy her.

"Ah." Harry chuckled a bit. "Yeah, blondie earned that one. 'Just kill it' is a fairly obvious reaction to an animal attack, but it's also fairly _dumb_. First off there's the whole endangered species and Amerai thing as Kettleburn touched on, and second off it's much better to use a stunner and get yourself out of there. When animals attack humanics, the vast majority are trying to get the victim to back off. They're not saying 'I'm a barking mad man-eater and I'm hungry', they're saying 'Get away from my kids', and you can't blame a parent for trying to protect their children. If you give them the room they deserve, the vast majority of animals will leave you alone. Of course, there's a few cases like saltwater crocodiles, bushwhacks, ogres, horse-dogs, knobblers, and doxies, all of which treat us humanics as prey, and then there's phronima, which are more like a seven foot virus in a spiny exoskeleton. But they are the exception. Most of the time when animals hurt people, it's because the people ignore, or don't understand, the animal's warning messages."

"You feel pretty strongly about that, don't you Harry?" Padma asked.

Harry nodded.

"Indeed. Who knows what the descendants of the zeppelin fish or the angelback land prawn might have been able to give the universe if they hadn't been run extinct?" Harry asked. "If it hadn't been for the Hardak menageries, the sabre-tooth tiger, the cave lion and the dire wolf would never have survived long enough to foster certain rare lines of shapeshifter. If Clan Hope hadn't preserved the giant ground sloths and the glyphodonts, the universe wouldn't really be any different, but it also wouldn't be quite such a fascinating place, would it?"

"True." Padma said.

"And anyway, I like animals." Harry said. "They always say what they mean."

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The assault magecraft classroom (Room 3) was large, low-ceilinged, had what looked to be a firing range at the bottom and a door onto a balcony at one side, and it was positively festooned with garlic.

"What's with the garlic?" someone asked.

"I guess it's to ward off vampires?" Hermione guessed.

"Balderdash." A strident upper-class female voice stated. "If you try scaring a vampire off with garlic, he will take a bite out of it and then laugh in your face before he tears out your throat." Hermione looked at the source of the voice, and found an annoyed-looking attractive blonde dressed in a manner reminiscent of a Victorian matron; her entire pose and body language screamed of that severely obnoxious sort of upper-class person.

"Well how the fuck would I know that?" Hermione asked, the class-war instincts her uncle had drilled into her kicking in. Being the niece of a rabid Levellers fan can have interesting results.

"L-l-l-l-lad-d-dies, n-n-no f-fight-ite-ite-ite-ite-iting." A voice stammered. "M-m-miss V-v-v-van H-hels-s-sing, y-y-you m-must ac-ac-ac-ac-ac-accep-p-p accept th-th-th-th-that s-s-s-s-s-s-some of y-y-y-y-your ec-ec-ec-ec-expect-t-t-tations are w-w-w-w-wrong. F-f-five p-points t-t-to g-Gryffind-d-dor, M-m-m-m-Miss G-g-granger; th-th-the g-garlic i-i-is ind-ind-indeed t-to w-w-ward o-off v-v-v-v-v-vampires."

A lot of heads rotated to look at the speaker, who proved to be the thin rat-faced Arabic-looking guy dressed in a turban and bathrobes whom Dumbledore had introduced as Professor Mycroft Quirrel at the arrival feast.

"Ben was right." Harry murmured to Hermione. "He's a twit."

Quirrel proceeded to introduce himself (Taking nearly a minute to get his own name out) and waste most of an hour with a roll-call; the annoyed upper-class girl turned out to be named Integra Van Helsing. The surname made Hermione wonder if there had ever been someone by the name of Count Dracula; the thought unnerved her, so she left it.

The roll-call set the tone for the entire class; Quirrel frequently stuttered so badly you'd forgotten the beginning of the sentence by the time he managed to get the end out, and nobody missed the way his hands were shaking. Harry spent the entire class subtly taking the piss out of Quirrel, while Luna read the latest in a long line of upside down books (this one titled 'Herbal and Sacred Healing Beers') and completely ignored the lecture.

It was a relief when the class ended.

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Most of the first-years congregated in the Gryffindor hangout at the end of the Assault Magecraft class; the exception was of course the Death Munchkin type Slytherins, who headed directly for their own hangout.

On their way to their snake holes, the Death Munchkins encountered Snape. Each student bowed to him as he passed.

"Mr Malfoy." Snape said, coming to a halt.

"Professor." Draco said, with the bow that decorum required.

"We are going to set the Potter brat up." Snape stated. "Here's the plan; you must comply precisely."

Draco nodded calmly, accepted the sheet, flipped it open and had a careful read through.

"This could lead me to lose face." Draco stated.

Snape smirked nastily.

"Ah, Draco; indeed it could. Yet that face can be earned back; your father has arranged for some enhanced machines for House Slytherin's gravball team, and I have here instructions to Flint to bias selection in your favour; if you're any good you'll be given preferential treatment. And this is your first chance to earn an enhanced rank within House Slytherin; are you going to waste it?"

Draco inclined his head.

"I understand, Professor; the trade-off is acceptable. Excuse me; I shall arrange things at once."

Snape bowed; Draco returned the bow, and the two departed in opposite directions.

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Meanwhile in the Gryffindor dorms, the conversation had turned to the subject of the Assault Magecraft class.

"It wasn't so bad." Ron commented.

Integra burst out laughing. S'tarak'hai looked utterly disgusted. Harry made a pained noise.

"That man is an imbecile, Ronald." Integra stated. "He knows less about the dangers of this galaxy than _I_ do, and I am no expert. There is **no** form of vampire that would be deterred by garlic."

"Are you certain about that?" Hermione asked.

"I am from a family that has served Great Britain as the first line of defence against all supernatural dangers since prior to Earth's invention of the steam locomotive, and I am the heir, so to speak, of the family business." Integra told her. "So, yes, I'm fairly certain I know what I'm talking about."

"The whole garlic thing was a rumour put about by Vlad Tepes; disinformation, you get the idea." Harry remarked. "Anyway, back on subject; Quirrel. I think he's an idiot or a shellshock case who didn't hold it together, or both. Whichever way, he's got no place trying to teach people to fight."

"I told you, he's an evil stutterbunny." Luna remarked.

"There's something bigtime fishy about that bloke." Ben grumbled; he'd been hanging out with Fred and George and listening in on the conversation. "Dunno, but I get this baaad feeling whenever I'm near him." He shrugged.

"He's been giving me the evil eye every mealtime since the get-go." Harry commented, getting all analytical.

Integra gave him a thoughtful look.

"Interesting. He is quite blatantly scared of myself, Mr R'hara'tath and Mr Chaos, and appears to have malevolent intentions for Mr Johnson."

"Which leaves us back at square one." Ben said. "OK, so who doesn't get on with Kenti landwarriors, New Aussie Jedi, Earther demon hunters, and half-Deladarian mercenaries?"

"A fairly extensive list of people, mostly of the genetic purist or otherwise undesirable sorts." Integra stated. "Pureblood-supremacist extremist groups find we demon hunters a little objectionable, strongly dislike persons descended from more than one species, normally do not get on with Jedi and have a long-standing enmity with the Thousand Kingdoms."

"Pureblood-supremacist extremist groups? You mean the Death Eaters, right?" Ben checked.

"Yes, and other such groups – the Sisters of Purity, the McGlark Genealogical Society and a number of other such groups of unpleasant sorts, but those three are the major players." Integra said.

"Is everyone 100 sure we're not making a mountain out of a molehill? OK, so he's got a speech impediment and is starting us on simple stuff," Hermione began, only to get cut off by a bark of laughter from Harry.

"Sorry to burst your bubble, but the man's a complete wanker." Harry stated, shaking his head.

"He was just as uninformative with the second-year class." Ben remarked.

"Notice how he didn't even _try_ to teach us one single technique, let alone any of the underlying principles of the Destructive Arts?" S'tarak'hai growled. "I get the feeling he doesn't know a damn thing. Face it; we learned more about assault magecraft in McGonagall's class than with that pinhead."

"Yeah, at least she taught us to throw your generic fireball." Harry grumbled. "Hey Fred, you were right; it **is** downright painful listening to him trying to say his own name."

"Why the hell," S'tarak'hai snarled, "Have they brought in such a **nervous wreck** to teach us to fight? It's almost like they don't want us to learn anything."

Ben snorted disgustedly.

"You should have seen the twit they had last year. Terminal alcoholic. Put it this way, I don't think I ever saw him _not_ drunk as a skunk."

"You're telling me," Tara boggled, "He was worse than that idiot?"

Ben nodded.

"Believe it or not, that stuttering know-nothing is an _improvement_."

Harry slammed the palm of his hand into the table. "I'll tell you what we ought to do." He said. "We ought to start a self-study group."

At that moment, several someones came crashing into the Gryffindor hangout; those someones were several Death Munchkins, including Draco Malfoy and the captain of the Slytherin gravball team, Marcus Flint.

Draco glanced around, then came sauntering over to where the gang were slouched, turning his nose further and further up as he came.

"**Johnson**." He said.

"Malfoy." Harry remarked. "How's about some Nerf? Or maybe hair gel? Hmm, and hows the Y-fronts, old boy?"

"You're oh-so-fucking superior, aren't you _**Johnson**_? Well, I'm gonna prove who's the better mage." Draco snarled. "Meet me on sub-level one, room 26 tonight at midnight – or can't you get out the dorms after curfew?"

Harry raised an eyebrow.

"And then what?" he asked.

"A test of thaumatic strength." Draco told him.

Harry considered that for a long moment, and then nodded.

"Right you are, wank-stain. Prepare to lose."

"You're going to find out who's the _real_ mage, _Johnson_!" Draco snapped, and stormed off, flanked by the assorted gravballers.

"What a prick." Parvati said.

"Does he seriously wear Y-fronts?" Padma asked.

"Yup." Fred said. Padma started laughing.

"So, you gonna bother going for his fake challenge?" S'tarak'hai asked.

"Of course." Harry said.

"You can't be serious!" Hermione gasped.

Harry chuckled quietly to himself.

"Oh, I am." He said. "Listen, it's like this. If Draco shows up, I'll beat the shit out of him; if he brings his bookends and that mono-eyebrowed thug Flint, I'll beat the shit out of them too. They can't complain, that'd involve admitting they were out of the dorms after curfew. If he doesn't show up, he's just given me ammunition for taking the piss out of him; I'll legitimately be able to call him a coward."

"Isn't beating him up a bit, I dunno, a bit like lowering yourself to his level?" Hermione asked.

Harry rolled his eyes.

"I'm a Sith Knight." He said. "I've got two options. Either I rule the darkness, or the darkness rules me. There's no middle road. No easy option. I could never be a Jedi; I've got a time-bomb in my head and their regime of self-denial would set it ticking. That's why they call me Darth Venger; there's this little voice inside me calling for payback against anyone and anything that ever crossed me. Either I master my rage, or it masters me."

"I don't really get it." Hermione admitted. Harry sighed.

"All Sith have a certain thing that their life revolves around." He explained. "Take Darth Vader; he's had this thirst for conquest since early childhood. Sir Kenobi once told me that trying to train Darth Vader as a Jedi was a mistake from the word go. Darth Vader was a maniacal conqueror who ruled the Eastern Rim Alliance with an iron fist until he realised that his own anger over his treatment as a child and the death of his mother had made him a slave to his nastiest impulses; he later said, and I quote, 'Nothing and nobody makes a slave of Darth Vader'. Not even Darth Vader's own fucking id, it seems. Take Malfoy's father, Darth Laver; he's a good example of what happens when a Sith lets their demons run the show. His pet obsession is the complete and utter domination of everyone and everything around him, and he's got pretty good at it if his brat's anything to go by; that little drip is so obviously under his daddy's thumb it isn't even funny. And then there's me. Our Sith titles are exactly that; titles. They indicate what we call our Shadow; it's a mix of obsession, inner demon and monster from the id."

"I still don't get it." Hermione said.

"Vader; drop the 'In' from 'Invader'." Harry informed her. "Venger; drop the 'Re' from 'Revenger'. Laver; drop the 'Ens' from 'Enslaver'. Treya; drop the 'Be' from 'Betrayer' and fuck up the spelling, she was a bit on the dyslexic side. Sidious; drop the 'In' from 'Insidious'. Vager; drop the 'Ra' from 'Ravager'. You getting the picture yet?"

"Oh. So… what's the 'Darth' bit about?"

Harry snorted. "It's the Sith equivalent of the 'sir' you attach to a knight's name. It's actually from the Atlantean for 'Evil', it's a holdover from the bad old days."

"Darth Vader… Evil Invader… I get it." Hermione said. "Harry, how can revenge be evil?"

Harry looked at her for a long moment.

"It's entirely possible to take things way too far." He said. "My bad side regards this entire galaxy as responsible for the shit I've been through, especially a certain beardy old bastard who can't even hire decent help. But anyway, after what that little bastard did to his poor bloody familiar, either I'm going to make him wish he'd never done that or I'm liable to go off the handle. It's a balancing act. Trust me, I know what I'm doing; I've been doing it for quite a while."

"Fair enough." Hermione said. "I'd like to come with you, I want to kick him a few times too."

"Can I come?" Ron asked.

Harry paused.

"Okay, here's the deal." He finally said. "Either you're dead quite, or you don't come. The staff have no need to know about our little excursion, understand? I'm going to lead this thing, and you're going to follow my instructions until we're safely back in the dorms. Are you cool with that?"

Hermione nodded.

"Sure." Said Ron.

Harry nodded.

"Good. Let's go get some food, then I suggest we make up a list of everything we'll need for self-study Destructive Arts. After that, Granger, Weasely, be at my room at eleven fifteen on the dot. Not a minute before or after; we synchronise watches."

Harry marked the top of the minute, and they adjusted their watches to match his, then everyone trooped off down to the great hall for food. After dinner, they went back to the Gryffindor hangout.

After a short discussion they decided the primary thing they needed was space. Ben and Michelle volunteered to do something about that, and they dispersed; Lavender once more accompanied Harry to his room.

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At precisely 11:14, Hermione was out of her room; she arrived outside Harry's room just as her watch hit 11:15 and Ron arrived from the other direction.

The door opened, and Harry stuck his head out.

"Good. Come in." he said. They did.

"So what's the plan?" Ron asked as they sat down. Lavender was lounging on the bed along with Carla.

Harry placed a pair of objects Hermione recognised on the table; they were collapsible police batons.

"Put two and two together." Harry said.

"So, how are you planning on getting out the dorms without setting off the fire alarm?" Hermione asked.

Harry raised a finger, walked over to his window, and slid the shelves to one side. "Take a look at this."

Hermione had a look.

"As you see, the roof is approximately a foot below window level here." Harry said. "If you cross the ridge at the other end, you'll find yourself passing a window onto a secret passage connecting hall seven on the sixth floor and the back of the technomancy lecture hall; said window doesn't have any glass or shutters. It did have bars, but five minutes work with a monowire dispenser dealt with that."

"Okay, but… why?" Hermione asked.

"Every fox has more than one entrance to his hole." Harry said. "It's a basic defence practise; never block yourself into a dead end."

"Cool." Ron said.

"This isn't a fort and we're not in a war, Harry." Hermione said.

Harry slid the shelves back into place.

"That's nonsense." He said. "This entire star system is regarded as an intensity-three warzone, and this collegium happens to be the most heavily fortified location in the system."

"What's 'intensity three warzone' mean?" Lavender asked.

"Intensity-one warzone; publicly-approved police violence such as 'the war on drugs'." Harry said. "Intensity-two warzone; political violence zone, usually the state versus the public, including apartheid and ethnic cleansing, but normally just dictatorial oppression. Intensity-three warzone; two or more opposed terrorist or other underground organisations actively pursuing warfare. Those three are the warfare intensities that the general public don't usually regard as warfare, but they kill far more people per annum than the traditional guns-and-nukes type warfare. Intensity-four warzones are when two or more nation's ground troops are actively engaged in open-field combat. Intensity five is when you start getting orbital bombardments and starship-versus-starship engagements. Intensity six is all-out nuclear war resulting in collapse of society on a global scale. Intensity seven is warfare resulting in the complete destruction of one or more inhabited planets. Intensity eight entails the use of starkilling devices. Intensity nine is what's going on between the Galactic Council and Zeurghnorf; an intergalactic war of annihilation. Intensity ten has never happened, thank fuck; it's a war of annihilation between two or more universes. That help?"

Lavender nodded, her eyes wide.

"So anyway, back on subject. You've seen the way the entry hall and courtyard are arranged; they're designed so you can turn them into a kill zone using two actively-cooled machine guns and a pair of anti-armour launchers. That lovely hologram on the Great Hall ceiling is there to disguise the murder holes and segmentation portcullises; it's an extension of the entryway designed to eliminate even more invading troops. This place isn't a college campus; it's a fortress able to withstand a direct hit from most orbital bombardment weaponry. Yeah, if you don't know what you're looking at it looks like a tumbledown old heap of rocks. Well it's not, and if you think it is you've got another think coming." Harry continued.

"I've got to read 'Hogwarts: A History' sooner rather than later." Hermione muttered. "Gah, there's so much stuff I need to learn!"

"I can give you a good annotation to the public history of this place." Harry said. "I had a look at the Thousand Kingdoms Intelligence dossier and the Ordo Xenos report, and I've got a list of where they conflict with the public version of events. Did you know this place was successfully invaded once? Hogwarts was occupied by Mordred's troops during the final year of his insurgency. The houses concealed the entrances to their dorms, and the Slytherin gravball captain of the time managed to sneak out and kamikaze Mordred via one of the Great Hall's murder holes after nine months of occupation. Six students actually made it out alive; they managed to get out in time via a secret passage connecting to Hogsmeade when Mordred's troops flooded the building with nerve gas. The rest of the school population died, of course; those that hadn't been killed during the invasion, that is. There have been sixty-two attempts to take Hogwarts since Mordred and every one of them ran afoul of the robots."

"What robots?" Hermione asked. Harry looked startled.

"You mean you hadn't figured it out?" he asked. "Damn, you're slow on the uptake. You know those suits of plate mail that're all over the building? They're not suits of armour; they're Sentek hunter-killer robots. If that lot get activated anyone outside the dorms is fucked, and I mean proper _fucked_."

"… I didn't know that." Lavender said. Ron too was looking shocked.

Harry nodded. "Yeah, it's all the interesting details that get left out of the official version of events. Anyway, it's time to meet the malodorous blonde one. Coming?"

He pulled the shelves out the way, opened the window wide, and swung out onto the roof. Ron followed them, with Hermione rather doubtfully behind them.

"Remember, three knocks." Harry told Carla.

"Hurry on back." Lavender called as Carla closed the window.

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The trio moved quietly through the deserted halls of Hogwarts. They had a near miss with Filch, but Harry fired a subtle curse at the man, causing him to yelp and run off; there was a distant farting noise as he rounded the corner.

"What was that?" Ron whispered.

"Explosive Diarrhoea Curse." Harry replied. "He'll be on the crapper for the next hour or so; come on."

And they made good time to the first sub-level and thenceforth room 26.

"What the? Where's Draco?" Ron asked.

"Shaddup, Ron. We're early." Harry said as the three of them arrived at the centre of the room. "We'll wait till ten past, and then clear out assuming he's not shown up."

"Hey, what's that creaking noise?" Hermione asked.

The floor collapsed, dropping the three of them down a chute, at the bottom of which they landed in a small pile of debris.

There was a ping, and a scroll appeared, hanging in the air. Harry read it a couple of times, and chuckled quietly to himself as he grabbed the scroll out the air. "Very clever, rat fucker." He muttered.

"What's it say?" Hermione asked.

"Dear Johnson." Harry read. "As you've no doubt noticed, you seem to have taken a little plunge, and hopefully some of your barking dogs are with you. I knew you'd just assault me if I showed up, so I decided to establish my superiority from a safe distance; anyone who knew anything worthwhile would be able to tell a Dumping Floor enchantment when they saw it. That is of course why Room 26 is not used. You're now on the off-limits third sub-level; have fun. Signed, Draco Mercurio Malfoy." He stuffed the scroll into his pocket for later disposal. He didn't say about how the letter had been addressed 'Dear Harry Potter', since he didn't feel Ron needed to know about that.

"What about the termites?" Hermione squeaked, a sick feeling of terror creeping up in her guts.

"Calm down." Harry said. "Brazilian mutant flesh-eating termites are extinct." He drew one of his guns – the pump shotgun – and cocked it.

"Follow me." He instructed.

"How do you know which way to go?" Ron asked, obviously worried.

"Simple. See the 'Fire Escape' signs? I'd be willing to bet good money they point the way to the exit." Harry said, pointing. Right enough, there were clearly illuminated fire escape signs.

"Oh." Said Ron.

Three corners later, Harry stopped dead in his tracks as something growled.

Oddly, the growl sounded like it was coming from more than one throat.

Hermione worriedly peered round him, and nearly fell over backwards when she saw what was stood, stiff-legged and snarling, in the hall in front.

It was an ugly three-headed dog the size of a Transit van, and it was putting out very clear 'Angry Animal' vibes.

"Cool, it's a Cerberus hound." Harry said, acting as if he didn't have a triple-cranium mutt the size of a small bus threatening to eat his face.

"Oh shit, we're gonna die!" Ron pointed out.

"Nah." Harry said, tensed up and sneezed violently; a shower of liquid flew out. When it touched the air, it ignited with a dull thud, and suddenly Harry was blowing a cloud of fire out of his mouth; it roared like a jet engine, shock patterns rippling off the tips of the flame, which was so hot it sent Hermione and Ron reeling back; when he let off, the paving slab he'd aimed at was glowing. The three-headed hound yelped and scrambled backwards to the other end of the passage.

"What in the fuck was that?" Hermione squeaked as they ducked through the nearby door and onto a staircase. Hermione recognised this flight of stairs; it was the one they used to get down to the alchemy lecture hall.

Harry let out a low laugh. "Don't ask me any questions and I won't tell you any lies. We'd better get back to the dorms; I've got someone waiting for me to do interesting things to her. Come on."

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Lavender felt quite relieved when there came three knocks on the window and Carla pulled the shelves out the way; a moment later the three came scrambling back in.

To her bemusement, Ron and Hermione looked sincerely shook up.

"What happened?" Lavender asked.

"It was a set-up, of course." Harry said with a shrug.

"Harry, what was with that fire breath?" Hermione asked. Harry sighed.

"Does the old fart need to know about that? No, the old fart does not need to know about that. It's private business, Granger. Anyway, you've got all the information – use that brain of yours and work it out."

"Why didn't you just, I dunno, shoot that thing?" Ron asked.

"Four reasons." Harry said. "First off, Cerberus hounds are highly endangered. There's less than a hundred of them left, and every healthy adult may prove vital to the continued survival of the species; the hound down there is an adult male in excellent condition. Second off, they're cool. They're the only naturally three-headed species in known space, and the only survivor from a massive genus; they're too cool to blow away. Thirdly, their skin is some of the best biological armour in the galaxy; even a lightsabre would take two or three seconds to burn through, and a .60 Super Magnum shell would just detonate against the animal's hide and piss it off. And fourthly, I didn't need to kill it; I could get it to back off by just scaring the crap out of it, so that's exactly what I did." He sat down on the bed and casually put a hand between Lavender's legs. "Now scoot, I've got some unfinished business."

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Lying down on her bed, Hermione knew she wasn't going to have much luck going to sleep. Her brain was whirling with information.

What was with Harry? How come he could blow fire out of his mouth?

Something Artemis had said on the train came back to her.

"_The apast's syndrome is inherited from your mother, who happens to be a weretiger possessed of a very prominent tail."_

She resolved to talk to Artemis; he obviously knew what was going on.

**End Chapter.**

AN –

Top Dog and Biker ½ are looking for a more permanent home. This home needs to enable me to;

- attach graphics to each chapter, probably up to about 500k per image, primarily as chapter header images but possibly more than that; I want to be able to have graphics appropriate to that chapter rather than fucking Zwinkys or noisy smileys.

- post other artwork.

- insert song lyrics into the flow of the story, the exclusion of this being my main problem with this site if you ask me, a fanfiction website that would ban Symphony of the Sword and Drunkard's Walk has something _seriously_ wrong with its priorities.

- maintain tight control of formatting, especially the spacing of line returns. Careful use of line returns can make a big improvement to the way a story flows, and scene breaks can become much more fluid.

- insert HTML links into the text of the story, primarily so I can post links to reference images in the author's notes.

- arrange story listings in an in-story chronological order on the website. To see what I mean, check out the Undocumented Features chronological listings on the EPU website. If you don't know where to look, run a Google search on 'Undocumented Features', they're like number 2 on the results list. Yeah, Gryphon is pretty much my role-model as a fanfic author.

- connect to a forum. Definitely a necessity. And preferably have a comment thread / guestbook system enabling readers to comment without signing up to a forum, much like here.

My intent is to make Top Dog and Biker ½ a much more 'multimedia' experience, primarily using the stock of character art I'm building up. I don't plan on entirely ditching but I want to be able to control what the reader sees on clicking through to a chapter instead of getting saddled with random adverts.

If anyone's got any suggestions, drop me a line either via PM or in the comment thread for whichever fic you're reading this in. I'm aware I may have to construct a website myself, but I'm hoping to avoid that as my HTML skills are non-existent.

A phronima is, in the real world, a type of deep-sea crustacean parasite; it takes over the body of a salp (a type of jellyfish) and rears it's young in there. It also looks so nasty it inspired the xenomorphs from 'Alien'; it looks pretty much like a miniature transparent Alien. Of course, what Harry's talking about are either the Alien aliens or Genestealers, or some such similar horrible parasitic gribbly of the fairly standard science-fiction-nasty type.

The fundamental difference between humans and animals is fairly simple; animals don't lie. If an animal doesn't like what you're doing, that animal will tell you it doesn't like what you're doing, and if you don't understand (0r just ignore) what it's saying you can't exactly blame the poor animal for taking things to the next level and having a go at you. Most of the time, the things animals say are pretty obvious; snarling is a 'back-off' signal, and if you respond by backing off, the animal will probably leave you alone. Of course, there's probably an exception to the 'don't-lie' rule in the primate world – there normally is, chimp social interactions are unnervingly reminiscent of us humans at our worst – but there you go.

Actively cooling a machine gun; the real-world example is the water-cooled guns of the First World War. Those guns could fire non-stop pretty much indefinitely, assuming a reliable supply of ammunition and cooling water; try that with a modern air-cooled machine gun and the barrel would melt in a very short time. The down side is of course weight; a water-cooled Maxim MG'08 has a total weight of 62 kilos. To put that into perspective, the FN MAG (aka the British L7A1 GPMG, it's used by eighty or so nations under a variety of names) weighs just 10.15 kilos.

Doghead Out.


	13. Chapter 13

**This ain't no self-insert fic.**

**This ain't no slash fic neither.**

**This is Top Dog.**

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Draco Malfoy woke up.

His father's influence had got him a single. It's décor was of course tasteful and understated, as befitted the son of a Sith and scion of a noble line.

As he rose, he noticed something puzzling.

There were creaking noises coming from his wardrobe.

He stood up to investigate this, and stopped on seeing the large quantities of twisted yellow goo that were oozing out around the wardrobe door's perimeter.

"What the…?" he muttered.

He hauled the door open, having trouble budging it and therefore opening it with considerable force.

An avalanche of sticky yellow slime erupted out, most of it hitting Draco; his familiar dived out of the path of the flood, ending up squatting on the back of Draco's sofa.

"Uh… master?"

"GORF!"

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"What the Hell happened to Malfoy?" Ben asked without preamble. They'd just seated themselves at the breakfast table, and Draco was visible over by the Death Munchkin corner. His hair had some kind of yellow bobbly stuff in it, and he was dressed in clothes that (from the size) belonged either to Crabbe or to Goyle.

Harry made a completely overacted sad expression. "It's a terrible tragedy. Someone seems to have filled his wardrobe with Crazy Foam during the night, and he seems to have opened the door thus allowing a tidal wave of squiggly yellow gunk to hit him."

"Crazy Foam?" Fred asked.

"What is it?" George asked.

"It sounds cool." They chorused.

"It's this self-expanding foam used for insulation and blocking holes in walls, like round pipes and such like." Harry said. "A single can's worth expands to something like nine cubic metres of foam. There's this trick you can do with spray cans and dry ice. You freeze the can, peel the metal off, and stick the chunk of frozen whatever someplace, like, say, inside someone's car's glove compartment. Well, someone snuck into Draco's room with a bucket of dry ice and three cans of Crazy Foam. The someone put one frozen can-worth in among his underpants, a second in among his shirts and the fourth in among his trousers. I guess it pressurised the wardrobe when the stuff defrosted and splurged around."

"That was you?" Parvati asked, sounding impressed.

"Yup." Harry said, looking a lot smug.

"Ah, Harry." Dumbledore said. "I'd like to have a word with you this afternoon after classes; shall I come to the dorms, or would you like to meet with me at my office?"

"I'll come up to your office." Harry said. No sense letting the old fart plant anything else.

"Excellent; the password is 'Twix'; I'll be available most of this evening, so just drop by whenever you like. A good day to you." And the old man trotted off.

Harry watched him go with a pensive look.

"Interesting." He said.

"So, are you going to show up for it this time?" S'tarak'hai asked.

Harry nodded.

"Of course; he asked where I'd like to meet. If people treat me like an adult, I treat them like an adult; it's that simple. It's when they treat me like a little boy that I start fucking them around."

"Hi, guys."

"Grmph"

"So," Padma asked. "What've we got today?"

"Basic Rituals and Arboreomancy." Harry said. "First off some highly useful stuff, and second off how to go about getting all the most interesting alchemical reagents."

"Flitwick's great, and Sprout's really friendly." Ben said. "They're both a lot of fun to learn from; Flitwick's got this infectious enthusiasm for rituals and Sprout's a lovely old lady."

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**Disclaimer: I am a fish, I am a fish, I am a fish, I am a fish, I am a fish, I am a fish, I am a fish, I am a fish, I am a fish, I am a fish…**

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**Top Dog: Enter the Fnords**

**Book 1: Harry Johnson and the Headmaster's Socks.**

**A Doghead13 / United Galaxies fanfic**

**Written & produced by Calum J 'Doghead13' Wallace**

**Brought to you by Hairy Scottish Git Productions, GMBH**

**This is not a drill.**

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**Chapter 13: Trouble on the way**

**(In which Hermione has a major incident, and, Oh. A troll.)**

The day's classes were much of a muchness. In the morning they had 'Basic Rituals' with Professor Filius Flitwick, a guy no more than four feet tall with a truly impressive beergut; he looked much like a traditional fantasy dwarf given a haircut and shave and dressed in a tweed suit, and had a gruff-but-nice-guy attitude that kind of suited the appearance. That first class consisted mostly of Flitwick showing them the basics of operating a small stone circle. Lunch was it's usual leisurely affair, and then on the afternoon they had something called 'Arboreomancy' (which Draco loudly referred to as 'Fancy gardening, it should be left to the gnomes') with one Professor Pomodora Sprout, another midget, and once again a very pleasant person, and then they were set loose; they were at their own devices until Monday.

Hermione immediately started looking for Artemis Fowl. A couple of careful questions located him in the library.

"Apast's syndrome." Hermione said, marching up to him.

"I beg your pardon?" Artemis asked, looking up from his laptop.

"What _is_ Apast's syndrome?" Hermione asked. "You mentioned it on the train when you were talking to Harry."

"It's an inherited genetic disorder." Artemis said. "That's why I believe Johnson when he claims Professor Meiuu's his daughter. Apast's is only ever found in Amerai, and it basically means that when they first shapeshift a part of them gets stuck in animal form. Johnson's mother had a tail. Johnson has those eyes of his. And Professor Meiuu has her claws."

"Okay. So what has eyes like that?" Hermione muttered. "Like… like… some kind of lizard?"

She spun round, marched over to the 'biology' section of shelves, and started running a hand down the spines.

"Aha! 'Amerai Phenotypes: A Study of Shapeshifter Genetics', by Dr J J Kirth." She said, and pulled the large leather-bound book off the shelf.

Artemis smiled slightly. He could easily have told Hermione exactly what Harry was – but she was having so much fun working it out that he couldn't bring himself to spoil it.

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_Some sixty thousand years ago, a nation that called itself Hardak existed on the planet Taragh (now known as Earth) in the Tars Sahal'dat system._

_Although lacking technology more advanced than early medieval, the Hardaks were masters of magecraft, and the finest enchanters in the known universe. Contact with superluminal-capable nations brought the concept of starflight to them, and they constructed mage-tech starships with which to find their own place among the stars._

_Starships were not the only thing they needed._

_The other was weaponry._

_Although their enchanted weapons were easily as powerful as the finest Kenti grav rifles, they lacked troops; a lone mage cannot defend a world against a legion of landwarriors for long._

_And that led to the creation of the Amerai._

_The Hardak biomancers took the strongest and fastest serfs, and using methods long since lost fused them with Earth-native predatory animals, creating a unique fusion of man and beast; further experiments gave these new beings immense regenerative powers, and they were created in droves to be sent out to fight and die for their masters in myriad wars._

_Of course, as anyone who's ever been stupid enough to make slave super-soldiers can tell you, it was only a matter of time before the awesome destructive power of the Amerai was turned on their creators. That much is history._

_Today, the Amerai are one of the most widespread of humanic species; they inhabit millions of worlds across the universe, and are still regarded as some of the deadliest warriors in known space._

_Their genetics are a fascinating subject, and one that is only barely understood even today. This author is in a fairly unusual situation; as a member of Lord Akira Saotome's personal staff, I am well placed to conduct close examinations of the lines of descent of a major and highly variegated shapeshifter Clan._

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Hermione nodded thoughtfully. She was pretty certain she had the right book.

She dug in for a long read.

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Arriving in Dumbledore's office, Harry had a good peer around.

The place was an even more total bombsite than the Hufflepuff hangout.

Weird gadgets, computers, weaponry, trophies, diploma documents, big wobbly piles of books, empty pizza boxes, computer games, empty beercans, several miles of string, the Sorting Hat, a scruffy-looking red-orange bird, battered old sofas and assorted general mish-mash were scattered absolutely everywhere.

"What a mess." He said.

"Ah, Harry." Dumbledore remarked, emerging from the midst of the guddle. "Prompt as ever. So, have you figured out why you're here?"

Harry decided to try messing with Dumbledore's head right back.

"Well, Mom fell in love with Dad, and when people do that, they tend to fuck, and when people fuck, sometimes the woman gets pregnant." He said.

Dumbledore raised an eyebrow, then chuckled.

"Very true, but that wasn't quite what I meant. Do you know why I asked you to come here tonight?"

"Of course not, I'm not a telepath." Harry told him.

"True, true. Well, perhaps I had better explain. I understand that you and several of your compatriots are less than satisfied with Mycroft's teaching."

"The guy's a total fanny." Harry said. "He doesn't know what he's talking about. Hell, we learned more about the Destructive Arts with McGonagall!"

"Yes, well. Unfortunately, the post has acquired a somewhat… ah, _unpleasant_ reputation as not once in more than a quarter of a century has a lecturer lasted more than a single collegium year, and the good teachers avoid it like the plague." Dumbledore said. "During the Voldemort uprising, the Ministry foisted a political appointee upon me and the blasted man proved absolutely disastrous; he had a tendency to censor all information he regarded as 'dangerous', making his teachings fatally skewed in a way that got three promising students killed, after which I decided to establish a tradition of hiring blatant incompetents as it would at least cause the students to take up a self-study regime, and to that end I equipped our Librarium with a significant array of texts on the Destructive Arts. In previous years, groups of five to ten students have independently banded together to self-teach in this way; this year, it is more like the groundswell I had hoped to provoke. Why, almost the entirety of the new students this year are seemingly banding together with a few of their elders. Of course, the rather more extreme elements of House Slytherin are doing much the same separately. But I digress." He placed a bunch of keys on the table. "Here. I gather you're having a little space problem; well, the big brass key will let you into an old practise chamber, and the steel key will permit you to enter the old Assault Magecraft store-room on sub-level two. The practise chamber has a firing range suitable for low-to-mid range combat spells, and a fully-equipped holodeck, that admittedly may need a few little repairs. It's been out of use for some three centuries, so everything will likely need cleaned up. The door is concealed; it's the painting of an Adeptus Sororitas warrior on the fifth floor corridor 7A. The keyhole is in the Sororitas' gun-belt buckle."

"So, what do you get out of this?" Harry asked.

Dumbledore sighed and sat back.

"I trust you're aware of events concerning yourself and the creature that styled himself Lord Voldemort on Halloween of 1981?" he checked.

Harry nodded. "Of course."

"Well, yes, of course. But what do you know of why Voldemort attacked you?"

"Not much." Harry said. "I know he captured my mother while she was pregnant with me, and I know he experimented on me while I was in the womb, but aside from that I don't know what the bastard's game was."

Dumbledore nodded.

"There was a prophecy surrounding your birth, and that of your classmate, Neville Longbottom." He said.

"Oh?" Harry asked.

"The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches

Born to those who have thrice defied him

Born as the seventh month dies

And the Dark Lord will mark him as his equal

But he will have power the Dark Lord knows not

And either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives.

The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord will be born as the seventh

month dies." Dumbledore recited.

Harry narrowed his eyes.

"Very interesting. I take it this reached Old Mouldy." He said.

"Yes. It was common knowledge among the Death Eaters at the time that your reaction to the birth trauma was felt for a range of several thousand light years; I believe that Voldemort went alone to Godric's Hollow to avoid any of his troops shooting you with a soul-eater themselves."

Harry nodded.

"I think I get it. You figure the bastard's still kicking, don't you? Well, I think so too. I'm your primary anti-Mouldyshorts weapon, aren't I?"

"I'm afraid so, Harry." Dumbledore said.

Harry looked thoughtful for a long moment, then picked the keys up.

"Right. I'll see you later." He said, and walked out.

Dumbledore sighed as he watched Harry go.

"Both of us trapped by fate." He murmured.

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"Johnson." S'tarak'hai said as Harry settled himself.

"Lasercomm." Harry said; the two established a communication link.

"Yes, that's in line with what we've been able to find." S'tarak'hai said. "But we're certain there's another layer to it. What do you think?"

"Layers within layers, S'tarak'hai." Harry said. "The old man 'felt' like he was lying. What sources have you got?"

"A Thousand Kingdoms agent within the ranks of the Death Eaters gave us that one." S'tarak'hai said with a shrug. "Any information Blue gave us is top-quality; Blue was in the ranks of Voldemort's inner circle."

"What's the double-agent chances?" Harry asked.

"Low, possibly non-existent." S'tarak'hai said. "I won't go into why; too public and it'd give Blue's identity away, possibly to the wrong people."

"Pass me the dossier later." Harry said with a nod.

"Willdo." The two of them lapsed into silence.

"Hey guys, we're going down the pub for a couple hours before dinner. Coming?" Ben asked.

"Sure." Harry said.

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_The Amerai were designed to be a self-sustaining biological army. For this reason, 100 transmission of the Amerai genome was a necessity; it enables the entire Amerai species to rebuild even if reduced to a single individual. Any individual Amerai contains the genetic structure for every possible type of Amerai, and is able to produce children of any of the many shapeshifter phenotypes, though the child has a higher probability of being the same phenotype as the parent; for example, a werewolf will probably have werewolf children. Percentage-wise, it's a 75 chance of matching phenotype; the exact mechanism for this is unknown, and there is no known method of predicting what phenotype any specific pre-change child may be, aside of course from precognition, which always has a margin of error. Weres are 100 compatible with humans and all other humanics; in any individual coupling, a female shapeshifter is just as likely to get pregnant as a female human. Again, this is a part of the design specification of the Amerai, in part because it allows them to subsume useful genetics from other species into their gene pool and in part because it would, as stated before, allow a single specimen to rebuild the entire Amerai species._

_Some exceptions exist. Firstly, Tasmanian Werewolf mothers never produce any other phenotype, and Tasmanian Werewolf fathers impregnating human women only produces children of other phenotypes in a tenth of a percent of all pregnancies._

_Secondly is animal-form pregnancies; a werebear who procreates with a normal bear will give rise to animal-born werebears, and the same goes for other such Amerai-animal interactions. This is an 'undocumented feature' of the Amerai design, overlooked by Iceron but now well-known._

_Thirdly is the so-called blade-cat or weresmilodon. Blade-cats come about through an extremely rare recessive gene that only triggers in one in 75 billion Amerai, and they can only have blade-cat children by procreation with a non-Amerai member of the Smilodon species, either Smilodon Populator or their more numerous descendants, Smilodon Domesticus._

_The fourth and final exception is the Arcadian-cross weredragon. They have similar phenotype probabilities, but when the tenth of a percent comes up, that child will have Arcadian-cross weredragon children in 999 out of 1000 cases; the Arcadian-cross gene simply skips a generation. Arcadian-cross weredragons are an exception to a lot of rules, primarily because they are a hybrid that the Hardaks hadn't forseen, and the Arcadian draconic genes do strange things to the Amerai template. For example, no other weredragon can breathe fire in humanic form._

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"Oh holy shit." Hermione whispered; she ran over to the biology section, and after a rapid skim through hauled out a book she'd seen earlier:

'Blood of Arcadia: Draconian Genetics in the Humanic Form' by Prince Suza Far-Eyes.

"Hermione? Aw man, you're still in here? We're going down the pub for a couple hours before dinner." Ron said, having had a peer around. "Coming?"

"Busy." Hermione said. Ron shrugged and withdrew.

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_The biggest, toughest, most powerful sentient species in the known galaxy are the dragons of the planet Arcadia; we have the unique claim to fame of having been around since before the Old Atlanteans without ever having been successfully invaded or otherwise subjugated in any way._

_An adult Arcadian Dragon has a body length of sixty feet with another fifty feet of tail, ten of neck and eight of head, a wingspan of a hundred and eighty feet, scales capable of shrugging off hits from orbital strike weaponry, a physiology able to survive for an unlimited time in a hard vacuum, a biological anti-gravity system capable of orbital flight and re-entry, a form of natural warp drive enabling the dragon to reach a superluminal velocity of well over 250lph, claws capable of ripping through battle armour and plasma breath able to melt nanohardened duranium in a matter of seconds. Said adult dragon is regarded as an even match for any destroyer-class warship in known space._

_Reaching that level does of course take time; an Arcadian dragon is not considered adult until age 1,500, and even then the dragon still has growing left to do; we hit full size at approximately age 3,000, whereupon we cease to age._

_Although I do not believe any humanic being (short, of course, of our weredragon kin) can truly imagine what it means to be the dragon, I shall attempt to bring enlightenment to you within these pages._

_Prince Suza Far-Eyes, Crown Prince of Arcadia, 20/7/SD181597_

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Hermione frowned, and went to the book's index.

Just as she saw the listing, 'Hybridisation and Crossbreeding', something descended on the back of her skull and rendered her profoundly unconscious.

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The gang got back from the pub earlier than expected. Lavender and the Patils took off somewhere, while the others went rampaging up to the Gryffindor hangout in a slightly inebriated mob.

"Fred, George, there you are!" a tall, handsome young man said, hurrying over and joining the group. "Where've you been?"

"Down the pub, why?" Fred asked.

"I just saw the Slytherin team's first practise." The strange boy stated, sitting down between the Weasely twins. "Want to know who they've got on seeker? Draco Malfoy."

"He any good?" Fred asked.

The boy nodded. "Dangerously good. Shit, we need a secret weapon."

"Are you talking gravball?" Harry asked. The boy nodded.

"Of course."

"Okay. Give me a try-out." Harry said.

"You any good?"

"I placed fifth in the Supersurf last year." Harry told him. "I've got a Thousand Kingdoms license for any flying machine you care to name. I've ridden everything from a Mentler KG350 up to a DZ2000RR Nimbus, and I'm a patcholder in the Fire Falcons Sky Cycle Club. Oh, and as one of my hobbies I collect and customise skycycles of all kinds; I've got twenty-six, all of 'em supersports-grade or combat models, all of 'em either rare or seriously hopped-up, the rarest of the lot being my Saim-Haan Defence Force two-seater, though I might have an angle on an Imperial speederbike."

"You've got a Craftworld Eldar bike? Are you part-Eldar or something?"

"Nah, got the ears from Deladar via Clanspace." Harry said. "One of my mother's ancestors was captured by the Thousand Kingdoms during the second Kendarat-Deladar war. She was sold on the open market as usual, bought by some small-time Clanner, and his kids ended up on Earth, produced my old dear, along comes me. You wouldn't believe how many generations these ears pass down."

"Oh, okay." The boy grinned. "My name's Oliver Wood; I'm the Gryffindor gravball captain, and these two louts are my side-forwards."

"Harry Johnson." Harry said, accepting the handshake.

"Good to meet you." Wood said. "Anyway, try-outs are the first weekend in September, but we can get some practise in before that. Have you got a bike with you?"

Harry chuckled; Ben looked faintly smug.

"No, but that can be rectified." He said.

"Uh, okay, but, how?" Wood asked. Harry chuckled again.

"I hang out with the Chaos family." He said.

"Uh, so?" Wood asked.

Ben snorted.

"Harry's got a couple of subspace doors." He said. Everyone responded with a mixture of shock and astonishment, apart from S'tarak'hai, the Chaoses and Luna, that is.

And Dean Tomas, who looked puzzled.

"I hate to sound like a chump, but what's a subspace door?" he asked.

There was an astonished pause.

"Of course he doesn't know." Harry said. "Mundane-born. Take a door. Cut it in half down the thickness in such a way that it's connected through a sort of wormhole. Then you can take the two halves any distance apart through space and time, and you can set 'em up, open one half, step through, and come out the other half." He explained.

"Cool…" Dean said, "Uh, Waitaminute, if that works why starships?"

"Because there's only one person knows how to make a subspace door, and Washuu's not telling." Ben said. "Put it this way, that's technology so advanced it makes a starship look like a stone axe; there's been a few captured over the years, but nobody's ever managed to duplicate 'em."

"Anyway, jetcycles." Wood said. "What sort of machine are you thinking about, Harry?"

"I've got a Mentler DZ2000RR Nimbus streetfighter." Harry told him, and he looked seriously impressed.

The conversation stayed on the subject of jetbikes until it was time to go down to dinner, whereupon they noticed a certain absence.

"Where's Granger?" Harry asked, sounding faintly concerned, which (coming from Harry) gave everyone who actually knew him quite a shock.

"She's hiding in the sub-level five girls toilet." Lavender said. "She's really upset about something but she won't say what."

Harry looked more concerned as he ladled food onto his plate.

"Hmm." He said, then concentrated on eating.

"Hey, Ben." An unfamiliar voice said.

Looking at the source of this voice as he ate, Harry found it to be a short, swarthy young man dressed in a scruffy mechanic's coverall and a faded Hawaiian-print shirt.

"G'day, Dan." Ben said.

"The year's first C.H.A.R.G.E race is tomorrow afternoon." Dan stated. "Kyle station and back, blasting off at midday sharp. Thought you might want in."

Ben smirked.

"You're gonna eat my dust, Dan."

"Are you shitting me? No way is some crappy old Dodge redneck-mobile keeping up with my Corvette. You'd better have the cash to cough up."

Ben's smirk widened.

"Yeah _right_. You're on."

"Do I want to know?" Lavender mused.

"OK." Ben said. "There's enough space in Big Boss for four passengers. Who wants to come along for the ride?"

Michelle came bouncing over and hugged everyone at the table in turn. Satisfied that she'd done her Michelleing duty, she sat on the spare chair and grinned madly at everyone.

"Me." Harry said.

"Wicked, man! Can I come?" Luna asked.

"Shotgun!" Michelle put in.

"What's the story?" Ron asked.

"Oh, C.H.A.R.G.E is the Collegium Hotrod Association of Racers, Gearheads and Excitement." Ben explained. "And I'm the new bloke, because I've got a hot-rod. They- we race 'em on the public roads. Here to point A and back, the last car pays for a slap-up feed. Dan Jackson arranged it last year. Thing is, he's got no clue how fast I drive."

"Can I come?" Tara asked.

"OK, that's the car full. Be in the courtyard at ten to twelve for blast-off."

"You guys are insane." Lavender accused.

About then, Quirrel came rushing into the room and skidded to a halt in front of the staff table, this coincidentally right in front of the gang's table.

"Troll." He said. "On sub-level five. Thought you'd want to know."

Then he pitched over in a dead faint.

Dumbledore at once unleashed the Belch O' Doom.

"All students, return to your dorms at once!" he commanded, and the whole staff went roaring off downstairs.

In the resulting panicked mob, Harry and Ron ended up being stuck in the middle of a swarm of edgy Hufflepuffs.

"Shit." Harry suddenly said.

"What's up?" Ron asked.

"Lavender said Granger's hiding in the downstairs girls toilet." Harry replied.

Ron went a bit pale.

"Oh shit, yeah…"

Harry nodded and swung to his feet.

"Something like that. Let's move.

"What? Where?"

"We're going down and getting her." Harry stated.

"Uh, shouldn't we find someone from the staff?" Ron asked.

"That'd take too long." Harry said, and started running, mowing startled Puffs out his way.

"I must be fucking cuckoo." Ron muttered, and followed him.

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There was only one set of toilets on sub-level five. The gents on one side of the hall, the ladies on the other. It was three doors up from the alchemy lecture hall, therefore Harry and Ron knew how to find it.

However, right as they turned the corner from the stairs, they found a significant problem.

The troll was just wandering past the alchemy lecture hall on it's way up the hall towards the toilets.

"Klubbit, klubbit, klubbit." The troll mumbled as it ambled slowly along the hall. "Duh! Oi'm brainy! Klubbit, klubbit, klubbit, duh."

"Great, it's a fucking Klub Klubber." Harry grumbled.

The troll arrived at the toilet door. It seemed to notice something, looked faintly puzzled, then hit the doorframe with it's half of a tree, smashing the lintel clean out the wall.

"Duh, dat went klunk." The troll stated, proceeding through the newly-enlargened door.

"Fuck, that's-" Harry started.

Something screamed from within the door, and the troll said, "Duh! Oomie! Klubbit, duh!"

Harry took off like a rocket, kicked off the doorframe, and vanished into the toilets as Ron sprinted to catch up.

Something made a noise like a pair of scissors snipping through something especially sludgy. There was a noise like tearing silk, then the sound of meat hitting stone, followed by an immense crash.

Ron burst through the door, and stopped dead in his tracks.

The troll was flat on its back in the middle of the floor. It's head was a good ten feet away from it's neck. Hermione was stood there half in and half out of a toilet stall with her mouth hanging open; she had a black eye beginning to form, but otherwise seemed unhurt.

Harry was standing beside the troll. He didn't have a weapon out and he had blood all over him, but he didn't seem to be injured in the slightest.

"Chew on that, you stupid ugly bastard." Harry muttered. "We'd better get the Hell out of here."

He grabbed Hermione's wrist and ran, dragging her behind him; Ron stared for a split second and took off after them.

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Harry slammed the bolt into place, and finally relaxed.

"Well." He said.

"That was close." Ron said.

"…" Hermione said.

"Take a seat, you two." Harry gestured towards the sofa; Ron slumped on it with a groan, Hermione sat upright and stiff-limbed.

Harry slumped into his armchair.

"So, mind telling us why you were down there?"

Hermione took a moment to realise he was talking to her.

"I don't want to talk about it." She said, unaware of the alarm bells that this set ringing in the back of Harry's mind.

Harry finally took a moment to look at her. His eyes took in the bruises on her arms, the slowly swelling black eye…

… the rips in her skirt…

… and the bloodstains on her legs, visible through the rents.

She realised he knew what had happened as his expression collapsed into a black glower. There was a crack as his knuckles popped, and a grating noise as he clenched his teeth.

He turned to Ron.

"You need to go somewhere else." Harry ground out.

"What?" Ron asked.

Harry took several deep breaths, visibly calming himself, before speaking again, this time in a subdued version of his normal voice. "Ron, if this is going where I think it's headed, Hermione needs someone who understands. That someone is me. I'm sorry, but we're going to need some privacy here."

Ron now looked utterly bewildered.

"What's going on?" he asked.

Harry glanced at Hermione, then back at Ron.

"Put two and two together, Weasely." He ground out.

Ron went white.

"She… are you sure? Hermione, is he…"

Hermione nodded once. Only once, but once was enough. Ron went red as a tomato with rage.

"I'll gut the fucker." He spat.

"Get in line, Weasely. Now get moving." Harry said.

Ron nodded, clenching and unclenching his fists.

"I'll be in my room if you guys need me." He said.

"Thanks, Ron." Harry replied; the red-haired boy left, muttering darkly to himself.

There was a long silence in Room 308.

"What makes you think you understand?" Hermione whispered. "How can a guy understand what it's like to have… that… done to you?"

Harry shut his eyes for a moment; he leant over and took her hand in his.

"I understand exactly what you've just been through, kid." He said. "You know how I said there's a time for truth? It's now. Let me tell you about a fucking monster called Vernon Dursley…"

End Chapter

Next: We find out the truth about Harry's past … and all Hell breaks loose.

AN – Ouch. If you're wondering what happened, you need to learn to put two and two together.

All this came up due to the increased maturity level of the cast. I realised someone as mentally resilient as Hermione wouldn't be crying in the toilets over some little Brady Bunch 'I-don't-have-any-friends' problem at age sixteen especially considering she's got friends, and if Ron had passed a remark like in the canon she'd have just stuck her tongue out at him. So it went through a 'Draco-did-it' thought process, then that became 'someone-attacked-her', then that became what you see above. Oh, and yes Harry is going to go off like a fucking **bomb** on the stupid bastard who did that to Hermione. Expect a very dead character to crop up in the next couple of chapters.

And no, it's not Draco – the story needs him alive.

Crazy Foam is a real substance. It is used and acts pretty much how Harry described it; I know that stuff because my brother works as a builder.

The extracts from books Hermione was reading are actually segments of background material for the role-playing game myself and my brother (and our mates) are working on, slightly altered to fit in context.

Yes I'm aware events are moving somewhat faster than in the canon, yes I'm aware that in the canon the troll wasn't there until Haloween rather than at the start of the first week. Well, that's because of the increased power level of the magi characters; a troll is only a threat to someone without training or anti-armour weaponry.

The troll is a Klub Klubber, a troll who's gone raging batshit and joined the Klub Klub and now goes around clubbing everything, from that RPG I mentioned a moment ago. That's why the dialogue and dialect.


	14. Chapter 14

**This ain't no self-insert fic.**

**This ain't no slash fic neither.**

**This is Top Dog.**

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--- Wednesday July 31st, 1996 ---

--- Number 4 Privet Drive, Surrey ---

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My real name is Harry James Sirius Logan Fawcett Evans-Potter (mouthful, huh? My parents were nuts) and it is the day of my sixteenth birthday.

It may surprise you to know that I am not sixteen. I am approximately three hundred and twenty; I lost track a while back. Time travel does that.

I am currently walking up the garden path to the house in which I spent fifteen out of the first sixteen years of my life; Number 4 Privet Drive, Little Whingeing, Surrey.

Today is the day when my eldest daughter rescued my past self from the sick bastards who imprisoned me until my sixteenth. I have trained; I have fought, I have earned a hell of a lot of money working for some exceedingly powerful people, I have learned everything I can about my enemy.

I am the man they call Harry Johnson.

I am a mercenary killer, one of the most capable in known space.

And I have something very important to do.

Ahead of us, the front door opens and two people step out. One is a very familiar athletic green-haired beauty; my eldest daughter, Setsuna Meiuu.

The other is equally familiar, but this time from my past. A short, scrawny, hollow-cheeked, sunken-eyed youth with sallow skin, a pallid complexion, bruises of varying levels all over his face and clothes that hang off his skinny frame like a tarpaulin hung on a fence. I used to see that pallid face every time I looked in the mirror; he's me, age sixteen.

A flash of rage rears up in the back of my head as I remember everything those bastards put me through; looking at his malnourished frame and the kink in his right arm is like staring the demons of my past straight in the eye.

Well, they're going to find out Darth Venger isn't scared of demons.

God, the memories…

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**Disclaimer: Caution. Scenes of child abuse ahead.**

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**Top Dog: Enter the Fnords**

**Book 1: Harry Johnson and the Headmaster's Socks.**

**A Doghead13 / United Galaxies fanfic**

**Written & produced by Calum J 'Doghead13' Wallace**

**Brought to you by Hairy Scottish Git Productions, GMBH**

**This is not a drill.**

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**Chapter: May Hell Be Your Home.**

**(In which Harry finally reveals his origins, and it's not pretty.)**

Half an hour (and three Earth centuries) earlier, I had awoken just like any other day; a flash of pain as the boot contacted my head and a voice screaming, "Wake up you lazy little freak!"

I scrambled upright and struggled into my clothes; actually hand-me-downs from my fat bastard cousin Dudley. I'd got it down to a precise science; I could be dressed and upright in less than thirty seconds. This was essential, as if I took more than about 45 seconds I wouldn't get any food that day.

I was out the cupboard twenty-five and a half seconds after Uncle Vernon kicked me, fully dressed and ready to face the day.

"Get your useless behind in the kitchen." Vernon barked, and I hurried that way, carefully not running but not walking. If I was too slow I'd get chilli powder poured in my eyes and on my crotch before today's beating, likewise if I ran.

Aunt Petunia was waiting for me; she carefully watched as I fried up breakfast (bacon, eggs, sausages, beans, chips and hash browns) but Dudley was up unusually early and kept distracting her, so I managed to pocket a few half-cooked chips. Good big breakfast instantly guaranteed; hell, ten chips and I'd have more than some days, and the eleventh and twelfth were just a bonus. Aunt Petunia used to count the chips, but she stopped bothering after six months without me sneaking a chip.

With the cooking done, I served the Dursleys, waited until given permission, and sat down to see if there would be any food today. I really wanted to get back to my cupboard so I could eat my haul, but that would have to wait.

The Dursleys finished their meal, and Aunt Petunia carried the paucity of scraps through to the kitchen. Alarm bells sounded in my head when she put them in a box in the fridge instead of my bowl. It was gonna be one of those days, wasn't it?

Sure enough, Uncle Vernon grabbed my bowl off the floor. It was a cheap tin dog bowl. I wasn't allowed to eat at the table, but they expected me to watch them stuff their faces, I don't know why but I guess they enjoyed seeing me sit there and go hungry.

Vernon walked back to his seat, put my bowl down on the chair, and pulled his trousers down.

Yeah. One of those days.

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Several minutes grunting and straining later, there was a big curly poo in my bowl. I cursed my luck as I realised he hadn't forgotten my birthday after all.

The nasty glint was still there as he presented me the shit-filled bowl.

"Happy birthday you little freak. Here's your birthday cake; eat up."

The way it went was clear in my mind. First I'd be forced to eat Vernon's excrement. Then the ritual beating, which wouldn't stop until something went 'crunch' or I started drooling blood. The last couple of years Vernon had taken to sodomising me once he was satisfied with the beating. Then I'd be flung into my cupboard, pissed on, and left there for a few days.

My birthday 'celebrations' always went like that.

Something snapped inside my head. I'd been through this fourteen times.

At the time, I hoped that if I refused to eat up, Vernon would kill me, or injure me so badly I'd bleed to death or die of internal injuries, or something like that. I'd had enough; I didn't want to have to live through another day of that hell, and the only way out I could see was death.

"No." I said.

"Eat it, you ungrateful little bastard!" Vernon snarled.

"No." I repeated.

Vernon went purple. He did that when he was at his angriest. "**Eat it**!" he screamed, thrusting the bowl towards my face.

The next thing that happened still ranks as the most beautiful thing I have ever seen.

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A slim, long-fingered, brightly-polished chrome hand grabbed the shit-filled bowl and rammed it into Vernon's face with such force he was thrown flat on his back and his chair went flying across the room.

The owner of the hand was a tall, shapely, athletic-looking green-haired woman. She was oddly dressed – a miniscule white tube-top, scuffed-up denim jeans with leather patches on the knees, a black choker marked 'Daddy's Girl', combat boots and an odd glove on her left hand – and her entire right arm was composed of brightly chromed machinery, wired into the two-inch stub that was all that remained of her natural arm.

She was also wearing an expression of ice-cold fury more total than anything I had ever seen; her face was a chalk-white mask, her eyes blazed, and her mouth was drawn into a razor-sharp line of pent-up hatred.

She ducked down, grabbed my bowl, and scooped the turds out with her chrome hand, stuffed them into Vernon's mouth, and pinched his lips together, blood mixing with the filth as her metal fingers tore into his skin. There was a crunch as his teeth shattered.

"Disgusting, isn't it?" she remarked, and then stepped smoothly back as Vernon threw up a mix of blood, shit, puke and tooth fragments.

She gestured; there was a flash of light, and a metal staff appeared in her hands. It was about five feet long, with its entire surface covered in intricate lines that looked like a nightmare tangle of circuit patterns. One end looked almost like an unbelievably complex key head, and the other was a ring with a glittering red gemstone the size of an eyeball in the centre, suspended by crackling lines of blue energy.

She took the staff in a double-handed grip, and brought it down with all her might across Vernon's legs; there was that special crunching noise bones make when they shatter, and Vernon screamed.

I smiled. It felt kinda weird; my face wasn't used to those patterns.

"How do you like being helpless, Vernon?" She asked. "This is how that poor child felt every day of his life."

She whipped the staff round; the end smashed against Vernon's right shoulder with another satisfying crunch of breaking bone.

"Get away from him! I have a gun!" Petunia screeched. She'd run out, grabbed Vernon's rifle, and was now brandishing it.

The green-haired beauty sniffed and shifted her grip on the staff.

"You call that a gun? That's not a gun." There was a buzz and click, and the staff dramatically changed shape, somehow folding itself into a much bulkier multiple-barrelled machine gun of some sort. "This is a gun. What kind of woman are you, letting this lump of disgusting flab torture a child? Don't you have any compassion at all?"

"It's what the little freak deserves!" Petunia squeaked.

The green-haired woman let out a low, feral-sounding snarl, and swung her vulcan cannon across. Fire burst from the suddenly spinning barrels, raking the ceiling and blasting plaster fragments and dust into great clouds with a flat mechanical-sounding staccato roar.

"You're the freak here, Petunia Dursley. You'll find any **normal** sentient life-form would treat a child of their kin as their own, to cherish and protect, not a slave and punch-bag." The woman stated. "Your behaviour isn't just aberrant either. It's immoral, illegal, and sickening."

Her weapon changed again with another buzz and click, becoming a weird boxy single-barrel shotgun-like thing as Petunia dropped the rifle and started running for the door; the odd weapon coughed, and spat a fist-sized bundle of something that rapidly opened up, forming a net with barbed double-pronged harpoon-like spikes spaced evenly round it's perimeter; the net collected Petunia and pinned her to the wall, its spikes stabbing deeply into the plasterboard and wood. I started eating my pilfered chips, an insane hope against hope screaming through my mind.

Maybe this fiercely beautiful green-haired lady had come to take me away to a better place?

"Don't bother trying to phone the police, Dudley. My father threw a section of railroad track onto the switching gear, the entire area code's out."

There and then, I decided this woman's father had to be one cool dude.

The staff changed back, leaving the ceiling shot to ratshit and Petunia pinned to the wall in the hall, right beside the door to my cupboard.

A line of widdle moved down Dudley's trouser leg and began to form a puddle in the floor. The woman smirked and opened her hand; the staff vanished with another flash of white light.

Then she turned and smiled at me.

"Hello, Harry. My name is Setsuna, and you are my father."

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God, the memories…

I snap out of my momentary flashback and smile at my past self. He's carrying the dog bowl, now cleaned of Vernon's excrement, a threadbare once-blue blanket, a badly-burned copy of 'The Hobbit', a dagger made by grinding a spoon handle against a stone then wrapping one end in a rag, and an Action Man with one hand; at the time they were my only possessions. In case you wanted to know, I hadn't finished sharpening the makeshift dagger, and I'm still not sure whether I was planning to kill Vernon or myself.

I grin at him as we draw level.

"It's gonna be cool." I tell him. "Trust me." Poor little bastard.

"I don't trust anyone." He says. I remember saying that.

I wink. "Not even yourself?"

"No." he says.

"You will." I tell him, and step into that prissy house. For a moment I wish I was my younger self again as the apprehension hits me. I'm returning to my personal Hell, he's on his way to Larsa III for a magical week beneath the green sun and triple moons of that beautiful world, and then on to New Australia to have his mind and soul put back together. Lucky little bastard.

Then the condition Setsuna left the house in meets my eyes once more, and I stop worrying. This is going to be as easy as shooting rats in a barrel.

My uncle is laying unconscious on the floor, shit and blood smeared all over his face, his right arm and both legs bent up at funny angles. My aunt is stapled face-first to the wall by a Sentek net-thrower projectile. My fat bastard cousin is stood in the middle of the room, gawping blankly at the mess and his defeated parents.

I notice something I'd never cottoned on to; Vernon Dursley is a remarkably small man. He's only about five seven tall. No wonder Setsuna looked so tall back then – she's five eleven.

It's not surprising really. At age sixteen I was less than five feet tall courtesy of the way those bastards stunted my growth; that's why I spent the next four years mainlining growth hormones. I'm now six foot six, and thanks to a lot of high-intensity martial arts training I'm built like the proverbial brick shithouse.

I weigh about a hundred and twenty kilos. All of that is cybernetically-enhanced bloody-minded muscle and bone; according to my doctor, I have precisely two and a half grams of fat on me. It's nice being fit.

It's even nicer being a physically imposing specimen.

"Oh goody." I say. "Setsuna left an arm for me."

I stomp on Vernon's unbroken arm. It obediently crunches and bends in the wrong place. For a moment I contemplate shooting his dick off, or just blowing him into a field of splattered blood, but I'm here to prove something.

"Who the Hell are you?" Dudley squeaks. Isn't it time his balls dropped?

"Don't you remember me, Diddy darling?" I sneer, placing my hand on my best friend. "Time travel, you fucking moron. Yeah it's really me, Harry Potter, your worst fucking nightmare."

Dudley opens his fat stupid mouth.

"You can't be, the little runt just-"

I pull my best friend out of her holster and shove her massive .60-inch barrel between Dudley's teeth.

"This," I say, "Is the League Navy Small Arms E-Mag in .60 Super Magnum calibre, the known universe's most powerful production slugthrower handgun." My best friend is certainly an impressive sight; nearly fifty centimetres long, ten deep and forty tall, she weighs eight point six three kilos fully loaded with twelve shells, and each of her gigantic bullets is capable of punching clean through the glacis plate of an M1 Abrams tank. "Shut the Hell up or I'll demonstrate it on your empty fucking skull."

Not many people consider a gun their best friend, yet a gun is the most dependable friend you can have; with a good gun by your side, you can topple governments, free the enslaved, conquer worlds, stay alive and most important of all earn an absolute goddamned fortune in the process.

"Glumpsh!" Dudley says, going white as a sheet. I can see it in his eyes; he's wondering who this madman is, and trying to count up how many nanoseconds he has left to live.

Then I wink at him, smirk, withdraw my best friend from his mouth, wipe the drool off her barrel on his T-shirt, and turn my attention to my aunt, who's still yodelling as she hangs off the wall.

I punch her in the kidneys.

"Shut up or I'll blow your fucking head clean off." I say.

"You wouldn't dare!" my aunt croaks. She's still just as ugly, just as stick-like, and she still looks like a horse; its definite comedy material, seeing her pinned face-first to the wall like that. I pinch her arse just for laughs.

"Oh come on Auntie dear, you lot spent fifteen years doing your level best to turn me into an ice-cold sociopathic murderer, and you know what? It worked. I've killed more sentient beings than you've had hot dinners, and I should fucking know how many of those you've had. Now be very quiet, or I'll turn you and your pathetic fucking family into another statistic."

She swallows hard. Odd, I thought it was only men that had Adams apples like third knees. I wonder, is Petunia a post-op transvestite?

Nah, not likely. If a sex change operation resulted in something that foul, the transvestite would be rich from suing the plastic surgeons.

"It's funny, really." I continue. "I'm a mercenary. My rate is what amounts to a hundred and forty thousand pounds a day just to be available, and twenty thousand pounds an hour when I'm actually fighting. If you'd treated me like a human being, you'd now be getting a share of my fortune. But oh no, you had to treat me in a way no decent sentient being would treat a rabid fucking dog; I'd just like you to know, I hate you and I'd love to see you dead. But you know what? I'm better than you, and that's why you're still breathing. Hopefully I'll never see any of you again. Goodbye; I hope you enjoy explaining the mess, the missing nephew and the bloodstains in my cupboard to the cops."

The doorbell rings; I turn and saunter that way, and catch the letter as it falls through the mailbox.

There.

Time to get back to my truck and compose a reply to my Hogwarts letter. I don't want anything to do with the bastards who abandoned me to the Dursleys, but that place is the only way I'm going to get the answers to the question that's plagued me for my entire life.

What actually transpired that night in 1981?

The people who know the answers are out there somewhere, and I have good reasons to suspect one of them is Albus Dumbledore.

I am Harry Potter.

I just exorcised the demons of my past.

And now I am finally ready to face my destiny.

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--- The present ---

--- Room 3o8, Gryffindor dorm, Hogwarts ---

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Harry lapsed into silence.

"Oh." Hermione said, mostly because she didn't know what else to say.

"Yeah. A little boy sat in a puddle of urine, locked in a cupboard, sick as a dog from being forced to eat human faeces, wondering when his butthole will stop bleeding, and wishing someone would either get him out of there or just finish the job; that's my childhood." Harry told her. "You've got to admire Dumbledore, huh? The sheer level of ice-cold cunning it takes to send a little kid to Hell so he'll be forged into the perfect killer… it's pretty fucking impressive, I'm a stone psycho and I wouldn't do that."

"What do you mean?"

"I worked out why Dumbledore left me with the Dursleys a while back; if I'd had a normal childhood I probably wouldn't be able to put a bullet into someone's brainpan without batting an eyelid; every time I pull the trigger its Vernon Dursley's ugly sneering fucking face I'm seeing. You gotta hand it to Dumbledore; he really knows how to turn someone into a weapon. Yeah, I know exactly how you feel right now. Who did it? Ah, nice clear image; Flint. He's a dead man."

Harry walked over to his handgun rack, and lifted out a pair of boxes of 9mm Parabellum hollowpoints. He set them down on the table, then collected a pair of 100-round Calico magazines, and started filling the mags.

"Hermione. Let me teach you to shoot."

"I guess, but why?"

Harry looked at her for a long moment; his hands went still on the ammo.

"Marcus Flint is from a grand old pureblood family, while you are the daughter of a pair of mundanes." He said. "Believe me on this one; the entire legal system is skewed in favour of the purebloods. That's how Old Mouldy was able to get away with so much. It's why people like Lucius Malfoy are still on the street. And its why, if this goes to court, you will end up being given a life sentence for libel. The Ministry of Magic and Offworld Affairs and the UN Department of Planetary Defence are both rotten to the core. The purebloods don't just make up the entire legal system; the own the fucking court buildings and administrate that hellhole they call a jail. However, I am a Talosian master gunner. That means I have certain legal privileges; one of those privileges is the right to defend the honour of my students. Under the Talosian system, Flint just sullied your honour. Accept my offer and it will become my duty to put that bastard six feet under. Don't accept it and I'll just murder the son-of-a-bitch anyway. He was dead the moment he laid hands on you."

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Ben Chaos and S'tarak'hai R'hara'tath were playing darts in the Gryffindor hangout and swapping increasingly outrageous brags with one another and the Weasely Twins. Well, actually, although they were throwing things at a dartboard said things were not darts; they were throwing knives.

When they saw the expression on Harry's face as he came crashing into the hangout from the direction of the dorm proper, they immediately knew something was seriously wrong.

"Fred. Give me the map." Harry snarled, storming over.

"What's happening?" S'tarak'hai asked.

"Marcus Flint just raped Hermione." Harry stated. "I am going to find him and fill him with so much lead it'll take six strong men to carry him out."

The Marauder's Map came flying out of Fred's pocket as both Weasely twins went red with rage; S'tarak'hai emitted a low snarl, and Ben clenched his fists so hard his knuckles popped.

"I solemnly swear I am up to no good… He's in an old storeroom two corridors down from the Slytherin hangout with a whole load of other Death Munchkins." Fred said, critically examining the Map.

"You'll need backup, Johnson." S'tarak'hai said.

"And we're it, mate." Ben agreed.

"Count us in." George added.

"Those bastards try to mob up on you and they won't know what hit 'em." Fred said. "Mischief managed."

Harry contemplated the two Weaselys for a long moment.

"You realise I am going to shoot Flint, then keep shooting him until he is very thoroughly and messily dead." He said.

Fred snorted.

"Figured that." He said.

"Don't really care." George agreed.

"Bastard deserves it." Fred concluded.

Harry nodded once, and they were off, stalking through the halls of Hogwarts, weapons at the ready, everyone taking one look and getting the Hell out their way as they approached.

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They called it the Serpent's Den.

Years (maybe even centuries) ago, it had been a storeroom. It was now the blood purists private hangout. Some said Voldemort had assembled it; others laid that act at the feet of his predecessor Grindlewold, some said it was Mordred, and others still claimed that Salazar Slytherin created it.

Whoever had made it, it's door was invisible to anyone who hadn't been initiated by a prior user.

Sadly for the wannabe Death Eaters within, that included a set of three sisters by the names of Narcissa, Bellatrix and Andromeda Black, and while Narcissa and Bellatrix would have been welcome therein, Andromeda had defied her parents, fled their home and married a man named Theodore Tonks, who just so happened to be a mundane.

And, as it happened, Andromeda Black had been planning her escape for years. That was why she'd initiated four of her (at the time clandestine) friends, who had happened to be known as Messrs Moony, Padfoot, Prongs and Wormtail, who had included the Serpent's Den on their map.

That was how come, just as Flint was really getting into bragging about the way his victim had squealed, the door exploded off its hinges on the business end of a Size 24 digitigrade-layout combat boot with two hundred and sixty kilograms of pissed-off cybernetically-augmented Kenti behind it.

Invisible the door may have been; invulnerable was another question.

The wannabe Death Eaters all went for their weapons as S'tarak'hai crashed into the room, then froze as Ben Chaos followed him in with lightsabre drawn and lit; the Weasely twins came flanking the crazy Jedi, and then Harry Johnson himself, and he was so very pissed off he made Draco Malfoy very literally crap himself.

"Where the fuck is Marcus Flint?" Harry spat.

There was a rustle of clothing as the group around Flint seemed to evaporate, leaving him somewhat isolated in the middle of the room.

Harry stormed forwards until he was stood about six feet from Flint.

"Hermione Granger is _**mine**_, Marcus Talesio Steven Arkwright Winterton-Sidebottom-Flint." He said, and flung his chao at the floor; a bubble of energy erupted out from it, sealing him and Flint off from the rest of the universe. "**You touched one of my people**. Die, motherfucker."

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McGonagall was in no way expecting what she found when she walked into Albus Dumbledore's office.

It looked almost like a bomb had gone off. Half his (highly expensive) scrying equipment was smashed. Paperwork was strewn everywhere. There was vomit across his desk and onto the floor.

And he was sitting at the desk with his head in his hands, crying like a lost soul, and whispering "What have I done?" over and over again.

**End Chapter.**

Slight revision prior to posting; removal of lyrics. Original file preserved at my end for possible future posting somewhere else.

AN: This is not intended to turn into a Harry/Hermione romance, their relationship will be more mentor/student. Yes I did intentionally invert a Darth Vaderism with Setsuna's line back there, and yes I do think I'm being clever.

The whole sequence with Harry's memories is written in first person and partly in the present tense because it was originally going to be released as a side-story back when I was working on chapter five. Then, while spellchecking it, I realised it would make a good Harry-finally-explains-his-past flashback, and the net result is this. The listed weekday is correct for the date of Harry's 16th.

The way the Time Key Staff transforms will be explained much further into the story, probably in Biker ½ Book 2, which as it happens has the working title 'Bad Moon Rising'.

You know the whole thing with Dumbledore knowing what Harry went through at Dursley hands? I don't buy it.

As for what happened to Hermione, the reason Flint did it is because he's the most disposable male student on my 'Death Eater Master List', which ought to give you a big hint as to his chances of surviving the next chapter.

Sorry for the somewhat short chapter, I needed it to start and end where it did, and couldn't get it to stretch any further. Thanks to a done-in back I'm going to be posting three chapters at the one go, so that should kinda make up for that.


	15. Chapter 15

**This ain't no self-insert fic.**

**This ain't no slash fic neither.**

**This is Top Dog.**

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The Calicos roared and spat a single bullet each; Harry's senses were so hyperattenuated with rage that he saw the slugs streak across the ten foot gap between himself and the Slytherin gravball captain, flickers of glittering copper smacking into and blowing apart the hulking teenager's knee joints.

To Harry's surprise, Flint didn't scream as his knee-joints were smashed by the 120-grain chunks of lead; he merely let out a strained grunt and dropped like a rock, his ruined legs no longer able to support him.

Most of the audience had never seen someone gunshot before. Many of them had often been involved in plots to murder people, most had been taught to magically torture and kill, and several had seen someone hit with a death spell – but that didn't have the same visceral impact.

This was a whole different level of violence – kinetic brute force with a lot of blood thrown around.

"Did she scream, Flint?" Harry asked. "Did she beg? I bet you felt so tough; you could do anything you pleased and she couldn't do a damn thing about it."

Flint snarled and hauled a snub-nosed Sentek particle beam handgun out of his jacket; Harry's guns roared again, and the bullets smashed the blaster's particle accelerator to the point of uselessness, incidentally shattering Flint's right thumb in the process.

Flint grunted again, then growled, "Gonna get yours, fucker."

"But you know what?" Harry ranted, ignoring Flint's statement. "You didn't pick up on something, you sick bastard. Some of us have seen the underbelly of the galaxy. Some of us know what it's like to be helpless, to suffer… and some of us _care_. I could just shoot you to ratshit and be done with it. Hell, I was going to just start shooting and keep squeezing the triggers until the ammo ran dry, and these are hundred-round magazines; you got any idea what someone looks like when they've been shot two hundred times? But I changed my mind."

He thrust one of his guns into it's holster and withdrew a bulky lock-knife.

"It's a slow night and I've lost my appetite." Harry said, flicking the knife open. "I think I'll take some time with you."

"Get the fuck away from me you fucking psycho!" Flint tried to ward the sneering lizard-eyed elf off with frenetic waves of his arms, but only managed to get the tendons in his elbows severed.

"This is what it feels like to be helpless, Flint." Harry said. "Having fun yet?" His booted foot lashed out and connected with Flint's face, breaking the gravballer's jaw. "You'd be amazed how many sensitive places there are on the human body and the sort of damage you can do to them before you finish the bastard off."

"I'll fucking kill you!" Flint mumbled.

Harry laughed and shot Flint in the groin. This time Flint screamed like a stuck pig.

"You couldn't if you tried, you stupid prick." Harry remarked, enthusiastically stomping up and down on what was left of Flint's legs. "I'm sorry, did you need that bollock? Oh, let me counterbalance that!" The gun roared again, and another bullet impacted Flint's groin. "Hitler has only got one ball, and this fucking sicko's got none at all. You'd be amazed at how many nerves and blood vessels there are in a mammalian groin; enough that a bullet in the right place is bound to make a non-regenerating species very painfully bleed to death. That's why I only shot your nuts off, most of the blood vessels are in your dick and I want you to feel this for a bit longer." Harry had punctuated that rant by repeatedly kicking Flint in the head, then suddenly switched to slashing Flint's back to ribbons while yelling incoherently. Once most of Flint's body looked like it had been sand blasted (which took several minutes) he switched back to kicking, still yelling incoherently, then suddenly put his lock-knife away, yelled, "Ath tai!", hauled out his other Calico, and let fly with both guns in a salvo that seemed to shake the entire building. Flint jerked as the 9mm pistol slugs slammed into and through him. Chunks of meat spat out of the exit wounds, lifting bloody sprays into the air; a bullet blew his left ear off, then one slammed into his forehead, punching a neat hole in his skull and blowing the back off in a shower of jellied brains; the next one hit him just above the right nostril, blowing his sinuses open, then the final few punched through his torso and the pair of Calicos simultaneously ran dry.

Their barrels were glowing red-hot.

Harry very calmly holstered his guns as the shattered corpse crumpled to the floor with an audible 'splat'.

"Shai'gal tai kira, karath. Shouldn't have touched Hermione." Harry said, and picked up his chao; the forcescreen vanished with a hiss, and he stalked out along with his friends, leaving the Junior Death Eaters staring at the liberally perforated foul-smelling bloody mess that had once been the Slytherin gravball captain.

Draco wasn't the only one who threw up.

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**Disclaimer: Hebble yibble blub-dub futon. Other gibberish.**

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**Top Dog: Enter the Fnords**

**Book 1: Harry Johnson and the Headmaster's Socks.**

**A Doghead13 / United Galaxies fanfic**

**Written & produced by Calum J 'Doghead13' Wallace**

**Brought to you by Hairy Scottish Git Productions, GMBH**

**This is not a drill.**

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**Chapter 15: Angel with the scabbed wings**

**(In which the mother of all expositions takes place)**

"I have a number of phone calls to make." Dumbledore said in a muted voice.

"For the love of Dana, what's going on?" McGonagall asked, starting to get seriously freaked out.

"Harry." Dumbledore said, then tipped forwards so his face was resting in his hands again. "I really fucked up this time. It seems that what I'd thought was a safe and comfortable home, well, wasn't." His head shot up and he crashed his fist down on the table. "Dal Tarag tar Jal, they're his fucking family! Why the fuck didn't they act like it?"

"Albus, I hate to sound like a stuck record, but exactly what is going on?"

"It seems," Dumbledore said, back to his depressed slump, "That those Earther bastards rather severely abused Harry."

"Yeh fackin' **whit**?" McGonagall snarled.

"Beaten to within an inch of his life. Starved. Sexually abused. Urinated on. Forced to eat excrement." Dumbledore stated. "That was Harry's 'childhood'."

McGonagall had by this time gone extremely pale, and her lips were pressed into a thin line.

"Albus," she said, her childhood accent back with a vengeance, "If yeh dinnae inform yair police contacts right the noo, I'll call ma cousin Sean an' his biker pals, an' ah'll call ma Nac Mac Feegle pals, an we'll go gie they fackin' Sassenachs such a kickin' we'll mak 'em intae a big pile o' stupit deed bastit, layin' oot inna ditch. Crivvens, mebbe Ah'll go show 'em how we do thing back haime innywa!"

The door flew open with a crash.

"Albus! Albus! The Potter brat just-"

Snape stopped dead in his tracks, both verbally and physically, when McGonagall slapped him in the face.

"Severus." She snapped. "If yeh say innythin' yeh shouldnae aboot ma boy Harry agin, ah'll kick yair fackin' heed in."

"But he just killed Marcus Flint!" Snape spluttered, recoiling away from the infuriated Glaswegian.

"Who gives a monkeys?" Dumbledore snapped, his head jerking up. "If you must know, that mono-eyebrowed thug raped the Granger girl, I'm not surprised Harry drilled him."

"Who cares about that little know-it-all?" Snape growled.

"She's a bonnie lassie an' smart twa." McGonagall spat. "An' ah ken Mr **Johnson** cares enough tae kill fair her. Noo there's got tae be a reason fair that, an' ah think ah ken it."

"She's just a mudblood." Snape barked. "Worthy only of-"

"**SHUT UP, SEVERUS.**" Dumbledore roared, on his feet. "I just found out those bastard **muggles** I left Harry in the care of decided that raising him meant fifteen years of mental and physical torture, and Harry believes I knew about it; I am not in the mood to listen to you spout extremist drivel, so get the Hell out my office."

Snape ran like his life depended on it.

"I canna believe he jist said that." McGonagall muttered, her accent fading a bit as she gradually calmed down. "Whit the Hames happened tae Severus? This isnae lak him."

"I wish I knew." Dumbledore said, heaving a sigh. "I miss his professionalism, Minerva; I really do. But anyway, I have a phone call to make."

He picked up the phone, speed-dialled 5, waited as it rang through, and said, "Gabe, it's me. I've just discovered the most monumental cock-up I've ever pulled in my life…"

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The group didn't say a word until they were back in Harry's room. Hermione was curled up on the sofa with Carla cuddling her and tear tracks streaking her face; Harry sprawled down beside her.

"Fuck." He muttered. "Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck."

"Wasn't that a little…" Fred began.

"Uh, well…" George tried.

"Um, completely ape-shit?" Fred asked. Both of them were pale and shaky.

Harry nodded.

"Yeah. That was the whole idea, guys." He said. "Do you think any of those fucking bigots will ever forget that? If I'd just plugged him between the eyes, it wouldn't have the same impact. What I did is visceral, and those little shits are going to remember the mess for the rest of their lives. I hate those bastards and I want them to feel the fear their race hate club puts into everyone else. There's no point just stomping all over them – it's like trying to crush a cockroach, there'll be another along in a minute. You've got to demoralise them, split them apart, then smash them so thoroughly it sends a message resonating into the future."

"What sort of message?" George asked.

Harry closed his eyes.

"The galaxy will not tolerate their shit any more." He said. "It was once said, 'The only thing required for the triumph of evil is for decent people to do nothing'. Well fuck that, I'm fucking doing something."

"So it is said, so it is done." S'tarak'hai said with a sad smile. "You're a good man, Johnson."

Harry sighed.

"Not good enough."

Hermione opened her eyes; they were puffy and red-rimmed

"What did you…?" she asked.

Harry gently ran his fingers through Hermione's hair, a slight but noticeable evil glint entering his eyes.

"You don't want to know what I did." He said. "Rest assured that worthless bastard won't ever hurt anyone again, and he didn't go softly into that final goodnight."

Harry stood up and had a root around, finally coming out with a box of potion vials; he selected one and held it out to Hermione. "Dreamless Sleep potion." he told her. "You need it."

Hermione stared uncomprehendingly at him for a few long moments, then nodded, accepted the vial, and drank its contents; she then slumped against his side with a soft whimper.

Harry put an arm around her as the energy seemed to drain out of her, and in a few moments she was asleep; he picked her up, carried her over to his bed, laid her down, and put the covers over her.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck… not good enough." He said, and started stripping his Calicos down.

"I'm surprised you've got so attached to her so fast." Ben said.

"After a week's classes she's already getting publicly referred to as the best student in this year, if not the entire Collegium, which is probably why that bastard went after her; 'Not letting the mudblood put on airs', when all she's doing is being who she is; highly intelligent, attractive, very articulate, a quick learner and exceedingly powerful." Harry sighed. "Sound familiar yet?"

"She reminds you of your mother, doesn't she?" S'tarak'hai checked.

"Bang on the button as usual, cat-boy." Harry admitted. "I know I really shouldn't drag her down into my world but… shit, trying to stop myself is like trying to stop a freight train with a toothpick."

"Emotions are a powerful force." The big catman rumbled. "Their effects on our neural processes are profound, and yet to deny them is to deny the very thing that makes us bother getting out of bed in the morning. The way I see it, evolution doesn't often make mistakes; that part of our neurochemistry exists for a _reason_. But enough on that subject; I have a suggestion. Perhaps we should form an organisation of sorts for our mutual protection, to prevent anything like this from ever happening again. The Death Munchkins have banded together and form quite a powerful group, able to defy Collegium rule and even the law pretty much at will. We should band together in such a way."

Harry slowly nodded. "I like the way you think. We'll discuss it tomorrow… oh holy shit, take a look at this." With that, he tossed the first Calico's barrel to S'tarak'hai, who caught it out the air and critically examined it.

"This thing isn't a smoothbore, is it?" S'tarak'hai checked.

"Six groove rifling, right hand twist." Harry told him. "Or at least, it _was_."

S'tarak'hai nodded, a slight grin creasing his face.

"Boy, you've really screwed it up." He said. "Well, look at it on the bright side."

"What bright side?" Harry asked.

"You'll never have to clean _this_ gun barrel again." S'tarak'hai said.

"What've you done to it?" Ben asked.

"Shot the lands out, seared the firing chamber, messed the bolt up and warped the whole barrel with the heat." Harry told him. "Man I musta been worked up. A couple hundred pounds worth of precision firearms parts converted to so much junk, just like that; now _that's_ how you know you're alive."

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Sir Gabriel Van Helsing, Chief Inspector of Her Majesty's Supernatural Investigation Department, set the phone down and glared at the table for a few long moments.

"Fuck." He muttered, ripped the top sheet off his notepad, stood up, and walked through to the main office.

"Keith. Smeg. I've got a case for you two." He shouted to his two most uncontrollably violent loose cannons of officers.

Keith Gibson (one of the vanishingly few outlaw bikers to ever be a cop) and Smeg (a hulking semi-sentient goon) looked up from their game of flatten-the-beercan-on-the-forehead.

"Wazzup Chief?" Keith asked.

"Suspected abuse, I want you to go retrieve some suspects and check for any evidence." Van Helsing said, handing Keith the sheet from the notepad. "Here's the details."

"Wot about arrest warrants?" Keith asked.

"Get a couple from the pile by the door."

Keith nodded and stood up, his lips moving as he read the note.

"Durrr?" asked Smeg, retrieving his club, a knobbly segment of tree dubbed 'Ye Crust Modifier' by the other S.I.D officers.

"You go bash suspects with Keith." Van Helsing instructed.

"Smeg bash susp-pects, hurr hurr hurr."

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The next morning, the gang came down from the Gryffindor dorms in a densely-packed mob with Hermione at the centre; she was pale and shaky, her face was covered in yellowing bruises, and she obviously hadn't got much sleep. The gang swarmed around their usual table; Harry very purposefully seated himself one side of Hermione, S'tarak'hai silently placed himself the other, and Katarina, seeming to sense that something was up, positioned herself on guard behind Hermione's chair. They were a subdued bunch, and only livened up when, halfway through breakfast, a short fat man in a suit and bowler hat came storming into the great hall surrounded by a sizeable phalanx of uniformed Aurors.

"I think," Harry said, "This one's for me."

S'tarak'hai muttered darkly; Ben frowned, and Katarina started pacing around grumbling and growling. There was a series of clicks and crunches as varied people cocked their weapons.

The guy in the bowler had a short discussion with Dumbledore, obviously ignoring what the old man was saying, and then Snape pointed in the direction of the gang's table.

"Yeah, this one's for me." Harry said.

"Harold Johnson, come out with your hands up!" the fatty in the bowler yelled.

"Go fuck yourself, pork breath." Harry shouted. "If you want me come over here and do something about it, you fucking putz!"

The guy in the bowler came storming over to the table.

"You're under arrest you little bastard!" he spat.

"No I'm not." Harry said, shoving his chao in the fat guy's face. "Recognise this? Yeah, I'm an ordained Talosian Master-Gunner. The son-of-a-bitch dishonoured my student; it's not just my privilege to protect my students until they are capable of protecting themselves – it is my **sworn duty**."

"What proof do you have aside from rather questionable hearsay?" the fat guy in the bowler asked, clearly angry but backing up a bit.

"Shut the fuck up you stupid bastard." Harry snarled, shooting to his feet and shoving his E-Mag against the bowler-wearer's throat. "You can call me whatever the fuck you want, you can piss and moan, you can start bitchslap matches, but if you **ever** question my honour again I will drill you so full of holes you'll be winning the next Mr Swiss Cheese award. I know the significance of the Department of Child Welfare, Cornelius Alberto Fudge. And I know who instigated their eugenics program. So don't you fucking push me, you read me? You're already on my shit list, fat boy. How'd you like to be on my kill list?"

By this time S'tarak'hai, the Blink Doggers and Fleggitt were holding assorted automatic weaponry on the Aurors, who were frozen in the middle of going for their handguns. Nobody (except Fudge) missed that they were frozen because Dumbledore had shot them in the backs with some Hold Person spells.

"That's a recorded threat!" Fudge spluttered, backing off the gun. "You can't speak to the Minister of Magic and Offworld Affairs like that! It's an outrage!"

"Yeah, and I'm a Thousand Kingdoms citizen so you can go bone a goat motherfucker." Harry said, and spat in Fudge's face. "The outrage is that anyone let Darth Laver buy a fat incompetent bigot like you into office. Now get the fuck out my face or I'll get your teeth the fuck out your mouth, and by the way if I see one more fucking pig waving a fucking weapon at me I'll treat them as enemy combatants and cap the bastards on the spot. Someone I'm starting to care about got seriously hurt yesterday so I'm in a bad mood and if you so much as think about fucking me around I'm going to go all Klingon on your lame fucking ass. Make my day, you fucking wanker; start something."

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"That was… pretty impressive, really." Hermione said. They were back in Harry's room; Carla and Ron were slumped on the sofas, while Harry and Hermione lounged on Harry's bed.

"What was?" Harry asked. He was slumped in the pose of the relaxing student – back flat on the bed, legs up the wall.

"The way you tore into the Minister." Hermione admitted. She was sat hunched up almost in a foetus position beside him.

Harry snorted.

"Hermione, you shouldn't let yourself be impressed by a liar in a suit. Men like that are the entire reason there's so much wrong with this galaxy. I was trying to push him that one step further so I could blow the living shit out of him, but he didn't bite. He was trying to overawe me with the fact he's in an office he was bought into by a rich jerk who might just be Draco Malfoy's dirtbag father, and I let him know I'm not playing his game. After the war with Grindlewold, the Order of Talos was given some fairly extensive legal rights throughout Clanspace, which includes Earth; it was basically an attempt to get us to shut up about how vital we were in ending that nasty little pissing match. Net result, if someone fucks with the Order of Talos they become subject to our rules, regardless of whether they fucked with us before the Talosian they fucked with became a member of the Order. All of which means Fudge didn't have a leg to stand on and he knew it as soon as he saw that chao; the arrogant blood-purist bastard just wanted to try his luck. Seeing him run like a little bitch wasn't as satisfying as killing him would have been, but it'll have to do for now."

"What's _with_ this whole blood purism thing? What the Hell have they got against people like me?" Hermione wailed, falling backwards against his side.

Harry rested a hand on her shoulder and gave it a little squeeze; Hermione knew it was meant to be reassuring, but it made her flinch anyway.

"I'm going to let you in on a few little unspoken facts." Harry said. "About seventy-nine thousand years ago, give or take a few hundred, this planet was ruled by the early purebloods; they called themselves the Hardak dynasty. They had power. Not the party-tricks we mess around with today; real power. They terraformed worlds without using technology more advanced than plate mail, and damn nearly conquered the Thousand Kingdoms. Hell, they made the Amerai as slave troops, and today we don't even know how to instil the regeneration – there's an automatic biomantic archmagesty waiting for anyone who manages to reproduce the Amerai program. Of course, the Ams turned on the Hardaks, and only a scant thousand of the lower-ranked Hardak family members survived; the guy history calls Merlin was one of said survivors. A bunch of angry unarmed weres managed to destroy the Dynasty from beneath and slaughter ninety-nine point six percent of those uber-mages. It's a fear response, Hermione. Magic is their only defensive mechanism, and to their view people like you are a threat because of simple genetics. The 'purebloods' have been breeding with each other for a long time; it's what's called inbreeding. Did you know Malfoy's got three brothers and six sisters, all of whom were thrown out on the street before they were ten when their parents, and I use that term in the loosest possible sense, discovered they were squibs? That's inbreeding right there. There's a **damn good reason** Setsuna always calls Malfoy an inbred retard. Each generation, they get weaker while people like us get more powerful. Christ, the Crabbe and Goyle families have been marrying each other for centuries; those two's family tree looks like a telegraph pole. You **will** become more powerful than Malfoy can ever hope to be, because of simple genetics. Hell, you're already more powerful than he'll ever be, he just happens to have been trained since he could walk, that's why he's got a head-start on you. When those pureblood-seperationist fuckwads drop racial slurs or bigoted remarks, every time they sneer at decent people like you, every time they turn their nose up at you for being of mundane birth – even when that bastard went at you; **that** is what's on the edge of their minds. The fact is, next to you they're so badly outpowered they're like a blowtorch next to a fusion reactor. That's why they dick around with soul-eating spells when anyone with any sense knows that kind of crap can all too easily land you with schizophrenia. They're breeding the magic out of themselves, so they steal it from people like us."

"How am I going to last long enough to learn?" Hermione whispered, shrinking in on herself.

"Those fuckwads give you any shit, you talk to me, I'll fix it so they don't play fucking trumpet." Harry spat, leaping up and rooting around in one of his assorted chests of drawers; after some thuds and muffled swearing, he came out holding a dusty jewellery box, which he handed to her.

"That's an alarm bracelet." He said. "Put the bracelet on. The hexagonal protrusion on the ring locks the bracelet into place."

"What's it do?" Hermione asked, opening the box and looking at the contents; a heavy silver-looking bracelet, covered in intricate decorations, with a complex-looking latch, and a matching ring.

"What it sounds like." Harry said, sounding a bit distant as he flopped back onto the bed. "If you wear the bracelet and I wear the ring, I'll be able to feel when you're in danger… Listen, Hermione. Do you have any idea how special you are?"

She looked bewildered and slowly shook her head; she had absolutely no idea what he was talking about.

"Ron, how many sorcerers are there?" Harry asked.

"About two or three thousand." Ron said with a shrug. "Dunno really. Why?"

"There you go." Harry told Hermione. "In the current era there are over a trillion inhabited systems within known space. This is a sparsely-inhabited system; it only has a population of about eight and a half billion. Average is closer to ten billion per system. There's a hell of a lot of people in this universe, Hermione. Out of all those people, two or three thousand are like you." Ron reacted by falling off the sofa.

"That," Harry said, "Is how special you are, Hermione."

"_Are you saying she's a sorceress_?" Ron squawked, absolutely flabbergasted.

Harry nodded. "That's exactly what I'm saying."

"Sweet. Bloody. Merlin." Ron whispered. He gave Hermione a rather weak, shaken-up grin. "Uh, don't tell my mum, OK? She'd try to arrange a marriage or something."

"And don't whatever you do tell any of Malfoy's mob until you've passed the test to third circle, it'd probably take me at least two or three days to rescue you and that'd be long enough for those sick fucks to do things you really do not want or need to know about." Harry remarked.

"What are you saying?" Hermione asked.

Harry sighed.

"I'm saying, to decent families like the Weaselys, you're the number one most eligible young woman in known space. You have a genetic gift that is second to none in rarity and power. Sadly, that means that, to fuckheads like the Malfoys, you are the number one most desirable **sex slave** in known space. After all, you're a young, attractive, fertile and most importantly _untrained _andtherefore**unable to defend herself**, sorceress."

"What do you want with me?" Hermione asked, suddenly frightened again.

Harry stared off into space for a long moment.

"There was once a Clanless Amerai girl called Lily Arieth Evans." He remarked. "Her mother was human; she was born in 1944 shortly after her father got shot down and killed by the Luftwaffe, and she was trained at this collegium. Reports from the time describe her as being highly intelligent, attractive, very articulate and a quick learner. As it happens, as well as being a weretiger, Lily was a sorceress, the fifth most powerful ever recorded. While she was pregnant with her first and only child, she was kidnapped by the Death Eaters terrorist gang, who then experimented on her and her unborn child – **me**. They succeeded in making sure the sorcerous power would pass down. Any child Lily has **will** be a sorcerer, no question about that. What Old Mouldy planned was to eat my soul the day I was born, therefore absorbing all that sorcerous power into himself, then keep Mom constantly pregnant for as long as it took for her body to break down from the abuse, eating each child's soul at birth. Yup, he's one sick puppy all right. Fortunately for everyone in known space Dad managed to rescue Mom; three months later I was born, and I'm told psychic sensitives as far away as Kendarat felt my reaction to the birth trauma. Just over a year after that, Old Mouldy attacked my family, killed Dad so thoroughly they only ever found part of his left foot, gave Mom a head wound that left her with the mind of a newborn baby, and tried to kill me; the rest is history. Now the thing is, all the Death Wankers know exactly how to do what Old Mouldy tried to do to Mom, and most of them got off with slapped wrists courtesy of the chronically corrupt bureaucracy we call the Ministry of Magic and Offworld Affairs after my fucking forehead blew Old Mouldy to a wet red splat mark. And they're looking for brood slaves to revitalize their genetics; they're finally beginning to recognise what they've been doing to themselves by inbreeding. The simple fact that half-blood families like mine and Ron's are powerful enough to make the lot of them look like squibs is finally starting to sink in. You want to know what I want with you? You remind me of my mother, I want to make damn sure you don't ever have to go through even half of what Mom went through, and I will kill indiscriminately to make sure of it, as that ugly fucker found out the hard way. Trust my fucking luck that I didn't get into a position to do anything until it was far too fucking late."

"… oh." Hermione quietly said.

"My God, Harry…" Ron murmured. "You're… you're Harry **Potter**?"

Harry nodded. "Yeah. My name's Harry James Sirius Logan Fawcett Evans-Potter. Yeah it's a mouthful, what can I say, my parents were nuts. Lucky fucking me, as if I needed a big fucking target mark on my forehead along with the lightning bolt I've got burned into my skull."

"My God." Ron repeated.

"I'd appreciate it if you kept that to yourself, Ron. It's bad enough the staff knowing and Snape dropping hints; if the media found out I'd never get any goddamned peace."

Ron giggled nervously.

"It's just… kinda weird knowing I'm mates with my personal hero, okay?"

"If you think that's weird, think how weird it must be to be the personal hero of half the magi in Clanspace when in actual fact you're a violent maniac from Surrey. Now that's a strange feeling." Harry told him. "I'm a nutter with shellshock and a shit-ton of martial arts training. It's bad enough being famous for things I've actually done, and never mind some crap that happened before my second birthday and got my father wasted."

"How come you're not threatening Ron?" Hermione asked.

"Hmm?" came Harry's response.

"When Artemis cottoned on to who you really are on the train, you said you'd kill us if we passed it on." Hermione elaborated.

"Hermione, I threatened a group of people I neither knew nor trusted. Today I am making a request of a pair of people I like and to a certain degree trust; there is a very important difference right there. The simple fact that I am Harry Potter could make my life extremely complicated and could in fact endanger the lives of the people around me; there are bastards out there who would kill you without hesitation to get at the legendary Boy-Who-Lived."

Ron slowly nodded.

"Figures." He said. "A lot of purebloods were hoping Old Mouldy would win… uh, Harry, if you don't mind me asking, how come you've not got the scar?"

Harry smirked. "Well, it's like this. Not that long after my regeneration started working I noticed the scar was getting me all the wrong sorts of attention. So I took a Stanley knife and skinned that section of my head. As I'd guessed, it regenerated without the scar. There's still a lightning-bolt groove in my skull; you can feel it if you press against the correct part of my temple."

"Urk!" Ron said, looking a bit green round the gills.

"It stung like a bitch." Harry concluded.

"You're insane." Hermione said. "Completely insane."

"Yeah. According to the Thousand Kingdoms military shrinks, I'm mildly paranoid-schizophrenic and a borderline psychopath." Harry told her. "I don't trust those bastards, but they've got a point; I'd like to see anyone live through my 'childhood' and not come out of it cracked, they'd be doing pretty well."

"… true." Hermione admitted, then obviously suddenly thought of something. "Harry… you know when you scared off that three-headed dog by spitting fire at it? How'd you do that?"

"Okay." Harry said. "It's actually rather simple. You're aware my mother was a weretiger. You're aware of the significance of Apast's syndrome?"

"Yes." Hermione said. "The whole genetic disorder thing."

"What breathes fire and has eyes that look like this?" Harry asked.

"Sweet. _Bloody_. _**Merlin**_." Ron croaked. "You're a _**weredragon**_!"

"Twenty points to Gryffindor, Ron." Harry said. "I sure as Hell am a weredragon. Arcadian-cross, in fact."

Ron's jaw dropped even further, and he started making small inarticulate noises a bit like a confused kitten.

"What exactly does that mean?" Hermione asked. "And why does Ron look like he's been hit with a sledge hammer? I found a load of stuff about Amerai and a book about dragons, but when I was just starting to read it, well…" Her face fell. "I… got interrupted."

Harry winced. "Damnit, I wish I could resurrect that bastard. That way I'd be able to kill him a few more times… Arcadian dragons are the oldest known sentient species in the galaxy; they have historic records dating back to before life on Earth, and the oldest known Arcadian dragon fossils are older than the Earth's sun."

"So… what does your other body look like?" Hermione asked, partially distracted from the state she was in by her usual intellectual curiosity mode popping up.

"Well, in dragon form I'm a large adult Arcadian dragon; in total I'm a hundred and sixty-five feet long. My wingspan is two hundred and seven feet, and my scales are the same sort of blue as a gun." Harry blithely explained.

"And his halitosis can melt through starship armour." Ron said, his voice a bit wobbly. "And he can fly through space faster than the fastest starship ever built."

"True." Harry said with a shrug. "Yup, I'm one of the largest and most dangerous predatory creatures in known space. Incidentally, I weigh nearly as much as a blue whale."

"How can you fly with all that weight?" Hermione asked.

Harry chuckled again. "A lot of people wonder that. It's a form of biological anti-gravity system similar to that possessed by Kenti; it started off as a retroviral biocybernetic system back when my Arcadian ancestors were a little larger than a pterasaur, approximately two billion years ago. We've evolved a bit since then."

"Does anyone else know about this?" Hermione asked.

Harry shrugged. "S'tarak'hai knows; why do you think he respects me? He's a Special Forces combat cyborg and he knows for a fact he couldn't take me. Setsuna knows, of course; she's also an Arcadian-cross. Ben and Michelle know. The old fart probably knows. Other than that, I'm not sure; I think the staff know from the way Kettleburn was giving me funny looks. I'd prefer it if very few people knew; I like being underestimated."

"Harry, if you can do that fire breath thing and turn into a nearly indestructible dragon, how come you carry guns?" Hermione asked

"Energy." Harry said. "I quite literally **burned off** two and a half thousand calories when I scared that mutt, and that's a drop in the bloody bucket. For every hour I spend in draconic form, I need to eat approximately fifty kilos of high-energy food; raw fat-rich meat is best. Flying takes nearly two hundred calories a minute. Spaceflight, five times that figure. Whereas a bullet simply takes me twitching a couple of muscles. Besides, guns are fun."

Hermione nodded slowly, then a random thought popped to the forefront of her mind.

"Uh, Harry, I just thought of something." She said. "You know how you said something about a 'department of child wellfare' and a 'eugenics program'?"

"It's not pretty." Harry warned.

"I want to know." Hermione told him.

Harry sighed again. "Don't say I didn't warn you." He said. "It's like this. Ever heard of cot death? Otherwise known as Sudden Infant Death Syndrome?"

Hermione slowly nodded, getting that increasingly familiar creeping feeling of dread.

"It's otherwise pronounced 'Death spell'." Harry said. "What happens is, every year ninety-five percent of mundane-born magi children are quietly snuffed out. Just under sixteen years ago, one of the Ministry's so-called 'Eugenics specialists', in other words professional babykillers, turned up dead, crucified upside down on the side of the Ministry building. He'd been choked on his own testicles, and had 'This is what happens to people who kill babies' tattooed on his forehead. Like to know why that happened? Because when you turned up at the Collegium, Setsuna got a headache. That means, temporal paradox approaching. She looked into it, and discovered that you were on the blacklist."

"… and that means?" Hermione quietly asked.

"That means the Ministry marked you to be 'disposed of'." Harry bluntly stated. "Setsuna went back in time and killed the man who was going to kill you, then kept killing those sick fuckers until they figured someone was protecting you and stopped sending them. As it happens, in about ten years time there'll be an immense population explosion of mundane-born Earther magi students, because I completely destroyed the Department of Child Wellfare six years ago and I've been preventing it getting rebuilt."

Hermione stared off into space for a moment, critically examined the alarm bracelet's latch, then fastened it around her wrist and handed the ring to Harry without a word.

Harry gently squeezed her shoulder. "They'll never hurt you again, Hermione, and when they try I'll send the bastards to Hell one piece at a time. You have my word on that; you just got yourself the deadliest guardian angel in Clanspace. Anyway, when I said I'd teach you to shoot, I meant it." He grabbed a couple of gun boxes. "Let's move."

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"You know, I've just realised something we missed in all this mayhem." Fred remarked. They were lounging around in the Gryffindor hangout with Ben and S'tarak'hai and a few of the others; Ben and Fleggitt were shooting pool.

"What's that, good twin of mine?" George asked.

"It's simple, Oh good twin of mine." Fred said. "How did Harry know about the map?"

George looked momentarily startled.

"Crumbs, yeah…" he said.

S'tarak'hai chuckled quietly.

"If you're talking about the Marauder's Map, it's listed as being in your mutual possession on the Thousand Kingdoms intelligence report on this Collegium, which Harry has access to." He rumbled, sounding extremely amused.

"… um, why would Department 44 be interested in something like that?" Ben asked, then fired; the cue ball leapt over the intervening balls, landed behind the black, bounced off the side, sunk the seven ball, ricocheted, hit the other side, impacted the eight-ball and sent it careening down the length of the table and into the most distant pocket.

"Show-off." Bruce accused.

"In the unlikely event that Her Radiant Majesty's Armed Forces were to conduct operations in the immediate vicinity of this building, a certain map would become a vital tactical resource; after all, it gives a clear disposition listing of all personnel in the Collegium and grounds, making it vital to have it in your hands during operations here, partially to avoid the enemy gaining control of it." S'tarak'hai explained. "But that's all conjecture; it's Department 44's _job_ to watch the long shots and take the improbable into account."

"… well, I guess that makes sense." Fred and George bemusedly chorused. They'd never thought of the Map in quite those terms before.

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Ten minutes later on the firing range, Harry had two guns lined up at the head of the shooting lanes, each with its magazine beside it, and a large can of red paint at the far end of the range, hanging from a target carrier.

"Guns," he said, "Are dangerous. I can't tell you that enough times, believe me. When someone fucks around with a gun, it normally ends up with someone dead, often the idiot who was playing the fool. If I ever catch you pointing a gun at someone you're not completely willing to kill, I will be extremely angry, even if you know for damn sure the gun is a fake. I've seen too many people blown away because some idiot wasn't safe with a gun, and I'll be damned if the next one's you. Anyway." He picked up the first gun. "This is a Heckler and Koch P7M10 in 9mm Parabellum calibre. It's a good, simple, reliable gun. I use much more advanced weaponry, but I am not a beginner. Now, by galactic standards a 9mm Parabellum is a very low-power round, but watch this."

He aimed down the range. The gun went off with a flat CRACK, and the paint can burst, showering paint everywhere.

Harry put the gun back down.

"Believe me, Hermione. Even a small calibre like 9mm is capable of doing pretty much that to your head. These things are not toys. If you think otherwise, this ends here and now."

"I think I understand." Hermione said, somewhat shaken up by the mess.

Harry grinned. "Good. Now, you unload the P7 like this. Press this button to release the magazine, remembering to catch it, then pull the slide; that ejects the chambered cartridge; aim it somewhere safe, and pull the trigger. Most handguns are unloaded in much the same way." He put action to words, then put gun and magazine down. "Now for our next lesson. As far as you are concerned, a gun is always loaded, and I'm going to show you why." He picked up the second gun. "This is the third functional design of self-loading pistol in Kenti history, the R'garat'har MF21. It's a collector's item, there are less than a hundred left, but they still use the ammunition for small game rifles on a lot of stage-one colonies since its dirt cheap to produce. The action of this thing is pretty weird. You load it by slotting the magazine into the bottom of the pistol grip, like this, which is conventional enough." He put action to word, "Then you give it a good slap to make sure it's seated – you'd look pretty bad if the mag fell out of your gun."

"I guess." Hermione said.

"Next you grip these two wing-like things, and pull back. That's the gun loaded." He handed the loaded handgun to Hermione, butt-first. "That button at the top of the pistol grip is the magazine release. Unload it."

Hermione extracted the magazine and put it on the table, pulled back on the wing-like things, and watched the chambered cartridge tinkle away; then she aimed the gun downrange and pulled the trigger.

It roared and slammed back against her hand, nearly making her drop it from the unexpected recoil; a hole appeared in the sandbags at the bottom of the range, and Hermione stared blankly at the gun, her face as white as a sheet.

Harry nodded seriously.

"The biggest mechanical peculiarity of the MF21 design is the fact that it holds two shells inside it's mechanism at a time; when you put the magazine in, it does what's called preloading, a cam forces one shell backwards out of the magazine into the loading rail, that's why you have to slap the magazine to get it to seat. Then when you pull the charging handle, it chambers that shell and the cam drives another into the loading rail. Thus, if you drop the magazine and pull the charging handle, there's a round in the chamber with the hammer cocked above it. And the MF21 has no magazine safety. That, Hermione, is why you _always_ treat _any_ gun like a _loaded_ and **lethal** _weapon_."

Hermione nodded shakily, and gingerly put the MF21 down on the table beside it's magazine.

Harry picked it up, pulled the 'wings' back, checked the chamber, and put it back down, then turned back to her.

"There are certain rules of firearms safety, Hermione, and those rules are now your law." He said. "Firearms are designed for one thing, and one thing only; to kill. Therefore, first off you _always_ assume any firearm is loaded until you have made damn certain it is not loaded. No matter how old, beat-up, rusty, damaged, obsolete or dirty a weapon might be, it is still possible that it is cocked, locked, loaded and lethal. And that goes for muzzle-loading antiques too. Secondly, never _ever_ point a firearm at _anything_ you are not willing to put a bullet into, even if you know it is not loaded. That's how accidents happen, and when accidents happen with firearms, there is not a happy fucking ending; someone usually dies or, if they're incredibly lucky, is just permanently maimed. Thirdly, never hand over a firearm without removing any ammunition or emptying any cylinder, and opening the action so as to expose the chamber and thus demonstrate there is no bullet in it; if you can't, leave that weapon alone or ask someone else to clear it for you. Fourthly, if circumstances require you to hand over a weapon without clearing and checking it, make sure the safety catch is on and tell the person you're handing it to in no uncertain terms, 'This weapon is loaded. The safety catch is on.' If you don't know how to set the safety or there's no safety, make damn sure the person you're handing the gun to knows that. And fifth off, don't be taken in by 'experts' who break those rules. You will outlive them. Now that I'm done scaring you, I want you to sleep on all that."

Hermione nodded again. Harry grinned at her.

"See you at dinner." He said.

"See you." Hermione said, and headed back up to the castle, her nerves jangling; the roar of Harry's daily target practise echoed behind her.

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"I thought you were gonna learn to shoot with Harry?" Ron asked as a visibly shaken-up Hermione sat down beside S'tarak'hai.

"Johnson's a Talosian master gunner." The big catman remarked, shifting up to give Hermione some room. "That means something, you know. To him, gunplay is the ultimate martial art. Today he will have scared the piss out of her with that quirky old R'garat'har piece he's got. He always does that; it's the best way he's found of ramming home the point about just how dangerous guns can be. I advise you to stick with it, Granger; Johnson's an incredible shot and a superb teacher. Under one of his several identities, he holds a gold medal in every Olympic pistol discipline, as does his first student."

**End Chapter.**

Next – Road-racing with Ben Chaos, the weekend passes, Dursley Bashing with Smeg and Keith, and Snape's worst nightmare come true.

AN – Woo, long chapter! This one just wouldn't stop growing, and the same goes for the notes. Anyway, that's the exposition of the decade over with.

I for one don't think many of the JDE's have much of a handle on what they're actually playing around with. Death via Av Kav looks neat and tidy, the person just sort of stops. Death by mass application of brute force and hollowpoints, on the other hand, is a sincerely in-your-face sickening mess.

Incidentally, the Calico M900 is a real-world gun; it's one of the few firearms on the same level of the futuristic scale as the FN P90 or the H&K G11. It's magazines are the big deal with this gun; they're these tubular helical things containing either fifty or a hundred rounds in an astonishingly small space; with a hundred round mag it's a bit unwieldy, but still, a hundred rounds in a gun with a loaded weight less than three kilos? Yes Please. It's been in production since 1988 courtesy of the California Instrument Co, and it is my personal dream handgun.

The scraps of Kentare Harry came out with while killing Flint are; 'Ath tai' (basically, 'You're finished) and 'Shai'gal tai kira, karath' (more or less, 'Fuck your mother, shit-head'). Dumbledore's 'Dal Tarag tar Jal' is the Kentare equivalent of 'God save me'; it actually means something like 'May the Holy Mountains preserve me'.

McGonagall is a grand old Scots surname; one McGonagall was renowned as the worst poet ever to live, and some fans suspect his name inspired the Gonegalls of the Nac Mac Feegle. I've seen our Minerva McGonagall being slated as being related to said gentlemen in a superb crossover fic I once found on said fic dropped a bunch of Feegles into the Potterverse, with highly entertaining results. I can't currently find the fic in question (it'll get linked as one of my faves once I can) but suffice to say I've lifted a part of it's concept; if you wrote it (or know who did) think of this as being a tip of the hat to one highly entertaining piece of writing. The accent I've written the pissed-off McGonagall in is as Glaswegian as the Wellpark Brewery. Oh, and it's also a pretty good real-world equivalent of Feeglese. Or should that be Feeglewegian? Writing our favourite Gryffindor head speaking in such a strong Scots accent gave me a real kick.

In the context of this fic, 'Muggle' is an extremely offensive, possibly even racist, slur. It's on the same level as 'Mudblood'. That should give you a handle on how worked up Dumbledore got.

The 'You're a good man, Johnson' 'Not good enough' exchange has a dual meaning. S'tarak'hai means it as, Harry is a good person (in the good/evil sense) while Harry means it as, he wasn't good (skilled & prepared) enough to prevent Hermione getting attacked.

Smeg is somewhere half between Desperate Dan and your stereotypical caveman. He's loosely based on the Goons of Goon Show fame, and a character from 'Asterix and the Roman Agent', one Magnumopus. Keith is just your traditional big bad biker. Gabe Van H is actually based on an old RPG character of my brother's.

The 'Mr Swiss Cheese' line is cribbed from the original Appleseed anime. As far as I remember, the original version was, 'Put down the fucking girl or I'll drill you so full of holes you'll be winning the next Mr Swiss Cheese award'.

The bit with the map? I screwed up my continuity – the events of next chapter were originally going to happen before the troll incident. The brief explanation in this chapter is me covering-up for it. Department 44 is the Kenti equivalent of the CIA; this should be fairly obvious from context.

Harry's firearms safety rant is based on actual firearms handling protocols; a lot of it is paraphrasing stuff from the Jane's firearms recognition manual I have, especially the line about outliving so-called experts who break those rules.

Yes, Hermione's going to be an emotional basket case for a while. Anything else would be distinctly out-of-character.

Doghead Out.


	16. Chapter 16

**This ain't no self-insert fic.**

**This ain't no slash fic neither.**

**This is Top Dog.**

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Benjamin John Chaos wasn't in the most salubrious mood ever. In fact, he was pretty thoroughly upset.

Many people wrote Ben off as a complete whacko or a grinning goofy cheery Aussie guy. He was anything but, and a very few very unusual people could see through the cracks in the goofball façade; in his lifetime, Ben Chaos had made a few good decisions, made some bad ones too, killed a few enemies, seen a few friends and comrades killed, and had at age six been on the scene while his mother was eaten alive by an acromantula.

The goofy façade was exactly that – a façade; Ben was a warrior to the bone.

And right now, he was downright worried about a friend.

He knew Harry Johnson pretty well. He could (and in fact had, for the Jedi Order) write up an intelligence dossier on Harry. To most people, the guy was an enigma; to Ben he was the fairly obvious result of coming out of a highly unpleasant childhood and discovering you're extremely powerful.

Every so often, someone who goes through the sort of 'upbringing' Harry went through turns into an out-and-out serial killer. Harry had vestiges of that; he sometimes enjoyed his job (killing things) just a little too much for comfort.

The state of affairs in the collegium had Ben very worried. First off, there was the obvious mess with Flint going at Hermione; Ben figured that, if the Ministry had any sense, they'd have written off what happened to Flint as suicide. A bit like jumping out in front of a freight train, really; Flint had forgotten that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction, and when it's a psychotic weredragon doing the reacting it tends to get messy.

The biggest problem was, aside from the whole sick-bastard factor, it had put Harry in a truly shitty frame of mind. Harry's frame of mind wasn't exactly pleasant at the best of times, and when someone had a go at somebody Harry had decided was his, the net result was Harry's latent psychoses coming out to play. Add that together with the way Snape seemed hell-bent on pissing Harry off – now that was about as sensible as playing with flamethrowers in a nitro-glycerine store-room – and the way Dumbledore was rather crassly spying on Harry – who was one of those people who really value their privacy – and you had all the ingredients for a major situation.

Hell, when he put his mind to it Harry was a major situation all by himself. The guy was a bit like a Claymore mine – he didn't look like that much, and if you left him alone he'd leave you alone, but if you put one foot wrong he'd blow you into the middle of a month next Sunday.

"Penny for?" Michelle asked.

"Just wondering who Harry's gonna go off at next." Ben said with a shrug, and swung in through Big Boss's driver's window.

The Charger's engine roared into life as Ben turned the key; he turned the beacons on, loaded a cartridge into the stereo and sat back, grinning slightly to himself.

"Let's rock."

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**Disclaimer: Doom 3 is not my fault. That doesn't have much of anything to do with this story, but I really don't want to get blamed for that mess so I thought I'd point it out anyway.**

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**Top Dog: Enter the Fnords**

**Book 1: Harry Johnson and the Headmaster's Socks.**

**A Doghead13 / United Galaxies fanfic**

**Written & produced by Calum J 'Doghead13' Wallace**

**Brought to you by Hairy Scottish Git Productions, GMBH**

**This is not a drill.**

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**Chapter 16: Protect and Survive**

**(In which the CTMA is born)**

There was six of them. Dan Jackson with his silver Chevrolet Corvette, Fleggitt Nelkroddly with his blood-red antique Fliggitprob ADX4000 two-seater, Chaz LaFrance with his black Camaro, Kerry Featherstone with her white Shelby GT500 Mustang, Charlie Patton with his midnight blue Holden Monaro, and of course Ben Chaos with the bright orange Dodge Charger.

The Collegium Hotrod Association of Racers, Gearheads and Excitement was at it again. It was good to be young, free and alive.

The cars burst from the Collegium driveway onto the road down past Hogsmeade to Glenfinnan, a tight bundle of glittering chrome, mirror-polished bodywork, throbbing engines and squealing tyres.

Then the six cars threw themselves onto the road to Fort William, neons pulsing, sirens wailing and heavy metal pounding from high-end sound systems. The crofter who observed them hitting the main road shook his head and puffed at his pipe.

"Them goings-ons up at that there army base get stranger every year." He remarked to his sheepdog, who ignored him in favour of trying to stare down a stroppy old ewe.

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When the first car came skidding back into the courtyard (the Shelby GT500 this time) there was a reception committee the racers hadn't been expecting; Harry, S'tarak'hai, the Weasely twins, and Hermione. They were sat on one of the benches near the main doors, Harry and S'tarak'hai smoking while the two red-haired pranksters tried to get Hermione to smile, without much luck.

The group held position until the Charger pulled into the courtyard, smoke spewing from it's tyres as Ben stood on the brakes, whereupon Harry stood up.

""Aw crap, me and my memory." Ben muttered, reverse parking.

"What's the emergency, bro?" Michelle asked.

"The barmy weredragon and the feline meat-head want a chat." Ben said. "I'll meet you in the Gryffindor hangout later, 'kay?"

Michelle nodded bemusedly.

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Twenty minutes later, Ben was in Harry's room along with the group who'd been waiting for the racers to get back.

"Okay, here's the deal." Harry said, sweeping a very serious look around the room. "The bloodline supremacists have their race hate gang; they make themselves too strong for direct confrontation through weight of numbers, and they treat it like their god-given duty to make everyone else in the building suffer. The staff are either ineffectual or, worse, on those little bastards side. I say they've gone too far."

"So, what're you suggesting we do? Start some sort of gang war?" Hermione asked.

Harry shook his head.

"S'tarak'hai suggested something last night after you went to sleep." He said. "He said we ought to form 'an organisation of sorts for our mutual protection', and I agree with him."

"I'm with you, mate." Ben said, sitting forwards. Fred and George nodded, obviously clocking what this little get-together was about.

Someone knocked at the door. Harry gave it a curious look, and said, "Come in."

The door opened, and in walked Luna; Harry put his very large revolver down.

"Hi, guys." Luna said.

"Grmph." Katarina remarked, padding in after her.

"Luna? What's the problem?" Harry asked.

Luna smiled distantly at him. "Oh, no _problem_, it's just you're going to start something intriguing today, and I really think it's very important that I ask to be a part of it from the word go." she said.

"Okay, take a seat." Harry said, gesturing at the sofa.

"It looks a bit heavy, can I use it where it is?" Luna checked, then giggled at the weird expression this resulted in, and sat down.

"Right, where was I?" Harry muttered. "This… this defence association or whatever we end up calling it, the plan is we watch each other's backs. If one of us is in trouble we all muck in to help, and we never take any shit, whether it's from the Death Gobshites, the government, the old fart or anyone else. No matter what the authorities claim, this is not a safe place, we're not on a safe planet and we're not in a safe fucking galaxy. I for one am sick of watching the shit that's going on in magi society, and I for one intend to start doing something about it. 'The only thing required for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing'. Well fuck that, I'm doing something. Who's with me?"

"I am." Luna said.

"Right behind you, Johnson." S'tarak'hai growled.

"I've got your back, mate." Ben said.

"The Hell with it, I'm in." Hermione told them.

"We're-" George began.

"-Game." Fred concluded.

"Right." Harry said. "Any suggestions for rules? I suggest 'One for all, all for one' and 'Never leave a comrade behind'."

"Never lie to the CTMA unless it's none of our business and doesn't effect us anyway." Said Luna, who was writing this stuff down.

"Never blow one of us's secrets." Hermione said.

"Stand up for your own." S'tarak'hai said.

"What are we going to do about new people joining?" Fred asked.

"It'd be all too easy for the Death Munchkins to sneak spies in." George agreed.

"How about, all new members must be vetted by the seven Founders of the CTMA." Luna said. "Especially Harry and S'tarak'hai and Ben since Harry does that mindspeech thingy and S'tarak'hai has access to like intelligence reports and Ben's a Jedi."

"Makes sense." The Weasely twins chorused.

"Never leave an attack unavenged." S'tarak'hai said, glancing at Hermione.

"That ought to do us." Harry said.

"Okay, I've got 'One for all, all for one. Never leave a comrade behind. Never lie to the CTMA unless it's none of our business and doesn't effect us anyway. Never blow a CTMAer's secrets. Stand up for your own. All new members must be vetted by the seven Founders of the CTMA. Never leave an attack unavenged." Luna read out.

"Sound's good." Harry said. "We need like badges and such like."

Luna handed him a handful of cloth velcro-backed patches similar to military unit badges. "I already thought of that."

Harry gave her an intrigued look.

"You and I really ought to have a long discussion some time soon." He said. "Anyway, moving on to other things, shortly before Friday's upset I spoke to the old fart. He gave me these two keys; the big brass one opens an old practise chamber on the fifth floor, while the steel one opens the old Assault Magecraft store-room on sub-level two. Now, from the fact that the practise chamber's got a concealed door, I suspect it's something just a little bit special. Now, the old fart claims it's been disused for some time; it'll presumably need renovated. That means elbow grease. I suggest we let a couple of no-brain type people into the group specifically for that purpose."

"Anyone in particular?" S'tarak'hai asked.

"How about Ron?" Fred suggested.

"Sell it to me." Harry told him.

"Ron's honest, tough as an old boot, he's got serious guts, and he's over-loyal to anyone he regards as a friend." Fred said. "Unfortunately, Scabbers is the brains of the partnership, which isn't saying much."

"Ronniekins isn't _that_ thick, he's just a bit dense." George said.

"Yeah, he's got a brain. Problem is he doesn't use it." Fred concluded.

"I think he's okay." Hermione said.

"The kid's exactly what he seems." S'tarak'hai remarked. "That is, the youngest of six sons of a wretchedly poor family."

"I wouldn't say that." Fred and George chorused.

"I would." Harry said. "I know what the Ministry's pay scale looks like. Your old man's on pay grade E-5, which means I earn more a day than he does in _ten years_. The glass ceiling in action; it's funny how most of the Ministry people who were involved with Albus Dumbledore's side during the Voldemort insurgency have got sidelined into dead-end low-paying jobs, isn't it? Fudge is your typical right-wing autocrat; he pays lip service to equality, while in actual fact he's just as much of a bigot as Old Mouldy. It's a toss-up which of them are worse; Old Mouldy at least doesn't pretend he's being fair and respecting minorities, he just blows your face off with a death spell."

"This is starting to sound like stick-it-to-the-Man." George remarked.

"Stick it to the Man? Dude, I live on Kendarat, in a _really_ nice district of R'harash'gai't'rath." Harry said. "I'm on first-name terms with several members of the Kenti royal family, and in fact my best mate is that lunkhead over there, who just so happens to be the future High Alpha of Prathi R'hara'tath, who as I'm sure you know are the royal bodyguards, and catboy's father keeps trying to get me to marry one or another of his assorted extremely dangerous daughters. I'm in serious danger of becoming the sort of man people want to stick it to."

"Back on subject, how about Michelle?" Ben asked.

"I second the nomination." Harry immediately said.

"Thirded and fourthed." The twins chorused.

"Okay, if nobody's got any objections it looks like we're going to be getting Ron Weasely and Michelle Chaos as our first prospective recruits. Fred, George, I'll leave Ron up to you two; Ben, you can deal with Michelle. Let's see if we can collect them, then go find those rooms."

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And that, pretty much, is what they did. Fred and George found Ron, then got Harry and Hermione to help convince the youngest Weasely brother that this was not a joke. Meanwhile, Ben located Michelle who proved to be her usual bouncy enthusiastic self.

By the time they arrived at the life-size portrait of an Adeptus Sororitas warrior on corridor 7A on the fifth floor, the nascent gang contained nine people.

Harry contemplated the painting for a moment. It showed one of the black-clad Imperial Atlantean defenders of the faith, in her somewhat form-fitting jet-black powered body armour and typical severe hairstyle. She had a sizeable gun in her hands and was painted in such a way she seemed to be glaring at anyone who looked at the painting.

And, right enough, her belt buckle had a central keyhole.

Harry slotted the key, turned it, and pulled it out. He was about to say, 'Okay, now what', when the picture moved.

The Battle Sister stepped aside, making an ushering-in gesture, and in an instant the portrait had dissolved into nothingness, revealing the room beyond; the buckle was now set into the doorframe.

The room the door opened into was large to the tune of about ten metres to a side, roughly three metres tall, and extremely dirty. The sun streamed, stained grey, through a line of big arched dust-coated windows, one of which served as a door to a balcony. A complex ritual circle was engraved in the heavy paving slabs of the floor, which were on closer investigation made from enormous hunks of solid titanium, manufactured so precisely one would be unable to slip a monomolecular knife between them. Aside from that, a single empty lamp holder hanging from the ceiling and the thick all-encompassing layer of filth, the room was completely unfurnished.

"Wow." Luna said, admiring her surroundings.

"What a dump." Harry stated, looking around the long-abandoned room.

Luna smiled dreamily as she settled herself in a lotus position square in the middle of the room, ignoring the clouds of dust she was kicking up.

"There's a good energy in here, Harry. Ommmm!"

"Luna's right, this room's got potential." Michelle agreed. "Look. We can clean it up, and then I know where there's some old sofas, and I should be able to make sure the chimney isn't blocked, and it'll be nice and airy once the windows are clean, and on nice days we can drag the sofas out there on the balcony to hang out, and I think I know where there's a couple of old tables, and some cupboards, and I don't think I'll be able to find enough carpet to carpet the whole room, but I know Mom has some old rugs she isn't using, and I definitely know Dad'll give me some paint so we can make the walls nicer, and I think Uncle T'rael'aisha might have some old paintings we can hang on the wall, and it wouldn't be hard to get a nice lampshade. And anyway, Luna's right. There _is_ a nice energy in here."

"Ommmm!" Luna continued; Katarina rested her head in Luna's lap and started purring and drooling, which always nonplussed Hermione coming from a tigress the size of a large motorbike.

"OK," Michelle continued. "Let's get everyone together and start cleaning." She noted Harry's expression. "Why don't you go help Ben and the others look for that other room? I'll get some of the others, like Padma and Parvati and Lavender, and we'll get this room looking nice in no time, OK?"

Harry nodded, passed Michelle the key and took off along with Ben, Fred, George, S'tarak'hai, Hermione and Ron.

Michelle shrugged and shook her head; Luna opened her eyes and regarded the bouncy half-Kenti with a blank look.

"Boys." They both bemusedly stated.

"And Grangers." Luna said.

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It didn't take long to find the old Assault Magecraft storeroom since it was marked on the Marauders Map (which Fred and George had taken great glee in refreshing with the details of the old practise chamber) and it took them even less time to gain entry to said storeroom. The lock was a bit stiff, but Harry unearthed a can of high-grade gun oil, squirted some in, had a wiggle at the key, and it turned.

"Thanks mate." Ben said, pushing the door open and having a feel around for a lightswitch.

Finding one, he clicked it; with a series of clunks, four overhead striplights came on, illuminating the large and extremely dusty room.

"Crikey mate, look at all the _stuff_!" Ben goggled.

Hermione started lifting mysterious objects from the shelves and turning them over in her hands; after a while, she slowly put them back down.

"You realise what we've got here?" Harry checked.

Ben nodded, grinning broadly.

"This stuff… it's everything they've got in the AM classroom, and more. Awesome, mate! Awesome!"

"Right. Let's start sorting out what we'll need." Harry said, rooting around and grabbing bits of gear to stuff in his pockets.

"Blimey, there's half a Librarium in here!" Ron gawked, pointing at a line of shelves full of dusty old books.

"The Art of Destruction, an introduction, by Dr Hindlebrandt Flortgoyle… The Necronomicon, by Abdul Al Azharad… A Practical Guide to Homunculus Construction, by Dr Einrich Frankenstein… The Book of Vile Darkness, by Vecna McGibbon… Combat Transmogrification, by Dr Spindle Muldoon… Electromantic Combat, by Dr Ponder Stibbons … How to be Awse, by Muttley Gawdang Dawg…" Hermione said, reading off random spines.

"We'd better lock How to be Awse, the Book of Vile Darkness and the Necronomicon up somewhere and throw the key away, they're dangerous." Ben remarked.

"How can a book be dangerous?" Hermione asked.

"Well, the Necronomicon is liable to have your soul for lunch, the Book of Vile Darkness might make your face melt, and How to be Awse will definitely make you go loonier than Dad. Think I'll give 'em to Washuu for safe disposal before they eat anyone." Ben said, picking up the three books in question; the Necronomicon tried to bite him when he grabbed it, so he bashed it off the wall a few times then tied it firmly shut with a length of target lane winch cable he retrieved from one of the shelves full of random stuff.

"… okaaaay."

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Keith Gibson was a full member of the Hellhounds MCC, which is why he was large, hairy, and dressed in black leather.

He was also a cop.

His police career had began in the east end of London. At first, Keith had been a relatively ordinary bobby, then his sister was mowed down in drive-by shooting after Keith had got some evidence against Pirahna Dinsdale.

At that stage, Keith went a bit off the rails. He stopped shaving, stopped cutting his hair, started carrying a sawn-off pool cue and wearing a Kevlar-lined leather bike jacket, and very nearly got drummed out the force for hospitalising Dinsdale's girlfriend with aforesaid pool cue.

Fortunately for Keith, more or less at the same time as the debacle with Luton airport, the death of Pirahna Dinsdale, and the dawn of Keith's membership of the Hellhounds, he'd been head-hunted by a man by the name of Gabriel Van Helsing. Van Helsing was the chief of a highly classified police department – Her Majesty's Supernatural Investigation Department – and had noticed a couple of very important facts about Keith.

As well as being a bundle of uncontrolled aggression, Keith had set the record marks in police academy. Keith wasn't just a somewhat homicidal loose cannon – he was a somewhat homicidal loose cannon with superb policing instincts and a lot of very real investigation skills.

All that was why, when he stuck his head into the cupboard under the Dursley's stairs, he didn't pull a face at the stink and leave.

Instead, he extracted a plastic bag from an inside pocket, turned it inside-out on his hand, and use it to pull up a part of the rotting floor.

He sniffed it, frowned at the cocktail of smells, then wrapped it in the evidence bag, sealed it up and pocketed it.

He and Smeg had already beaten up the adult Dursleys and done some significant damage to parts of the building, most notably the front door and the three interior doors Smeg threw Vernon through.

It was time to be someplace else.

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Michelle, Luna and a few girls they'd roped in spent most of the rest of the day ensconced in the practise chamber in a mad fit of cleaning that Ron called 'Playing at house elves', while the others ferried stuff Ben, Harry and S'tarak'hai thought useful up from the storeroom. Dinner was a quiet affair; Hermione was distracted by 'The Art of Destruction, an introduction', and therefore was managing not to be a basket-case; they did a bit more clearing-up after dinner, then retired to the Gryffindor hangout for a game of Spades-while-drinking-lots-of-beer.

With that done, they began to filter towards bed, Harry once more accompanied by Lavender.

He paused on the way out and caught Hermione's eye.

"I'll be okay tonight." she assured him. "Tara's there."

Harry nodded and carried on.

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Vernon Dursley was in pain.

Keith Gibson had taken a lot of pleasure in beating the snot out of Vernon, mostly using the sawn-off pool cue.

Most of the other cops had taken turns as well, to the point that there wasn't a square inch of Vernon which wasn't sore.

He became aware of a boot poking at his arse.

"Gnnnrrrkkk…" he said.

"Wake up, you fat fuck." A voice said. Van Helsing's voice.

Sir Gabriel Van Helsing was a tall, rail-thin man with a downcast face, a constant bone-weary expression and bloodshot eyes, the coroneas of which were red. He wore a long dark coat, shitkicking boots and a wide floppy hat.

"Urrrggghh…" Vernon said

Van Helsing rolled Vernon over with the toe of his boot.

"We're going for a little walk, fat man. And we're going to discuss child-rearing techniques, to whit the morality and legality of yours."

"Like to know what they do to child abusers in jail?" Anna Larsson asked cheerfully. "Normally someone **cuts their balls off**." She was Van Helsing's primary assistant – a short and slightly androgynous blue-haired Scandanavian woman dressed entirely in black and guns.

"You see," Van Helsing continued, "It's against the law to beat children. Especially when there's broken bones involved. It's called assault."

"We're tempted to take you down the firing range and say you were killed attempting to escape." Anna agreed. "But we wouldn't get to know you were suffering. We're the SID, bastard. They call us the Maniac Cops. Normally, child abuse isn't our scene. When we do get involved in that kind of shit, the perp normally doesn't live long enough to get arrested. But when it happens to be the son of my old, old friend Lily Evans who's the victim… that's different. That's personal, fat man. And it's an _insult_."

"You're going to be inside for a long, long time." Van Helsing agreed. "I don't like people who hurt children."

"Ess Eye Dee? Never heard of you." Vernon croaked.

"Of course you fucking hadn't, you fat stupid bastard." Anna scoffed. "We're a classified branch of the police, Her Majesty's Supernatural Investigation Department. What we deal with is crimes by or against supernaturals and offworlders."

"Sir Albus Dumbledore – you know who he is, don't you? The most respected war hero on Earth? Well, he personally requested that we deal with this case, and who am I to refuse such a request?" Van Helsing remarked. "Since young Mr Potter happens to be a mage, the case would normally go to Her Majesty's Auror Department. But it seems that Sir Albus has a personal interest in Mr Potter's wellbeing, and took your actions as an insult. So he requested us seeing as how being extremely vicious and violent is part of our mission statement."

"We kill filth like you, Dursley. And we're very good at it." Anna agreed.

As the two Maniac Police had been talking, they'd arrived at the top of a flight of stairs that was very familiar to Vernon.

Van Helsing applied the toe of his boot to the crotch of Vernon's trousers, sending the fat man head-over-heels down the stairs.

"Man, he's 'slipped' and fallen down the stairs twenty-three times now." Keith remarked, sticking his head out of his office. "Must be a record."

"It isn't. The highest count is fifty-seven, that being Rupert 'Jack the Ripper' Clench." Van Helsing told him. "Incredibly 'clumsy' individual, that one."

"Ah well, not that many to go. Only thirty-four more."

"Yes, I think this bastard's going to break the record. What an incredibly 'clumsy' man." Van Helsing agreed. "Oh, and Keith? If you want to use your knife, he fell into a box of confiscated combat knives."

"Thanks, boss."

"Just make sure he doesn't wind up dead, I need him alive for the foreseeable future. Political reasons, you know the drill."

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Harry picked the giant revolver up as soon as he heard the knock; it was about two in the morning.

He flicked the Earthshaker's hammer back. "Come in."

The door opened, and a very miserable frizzy-haired figure clad in a vastly oversized T-shirt shuffled through. Harry immediately put the massive three-shot revolver down.

"You know how I said I'd be okay tonight because Tara's there?" Hermione said, head hanging as she stopped halfway across the room. "I was wrong."

Harry nodded, and flicked the covers aside; she slid into the gap between him and Lavender.

"Goodnight, Hermione." He said.

"Goodnight, Harry." Said a plaintive voice from beside him.

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Sunday dawned with a spectacular multi-hued sunrise that Harry was up in time to catch; he was in fact out on the firing range.

Once done with his morning's two hundred bullets, he had a good workout, then headed to the Great Hall, and from there back up to his room to check on the girls.

Hermione and Lavender were awake and had roped Carla into fetching them clean clothes; both looked slightly worse for the wear (admittedly they'd been rather drunk the previous night) but Hermione had got done with freshening up by the time Harry got there; she was sprawled on one of his sofas.

"I'm gonna go take a shower." Lavender said.

"Kay." Hermione replied.

"So. How're you holding up?" Harry asked, sitting down across from her.

Hermione sighed.

"Oh, fine I guess." She said.

"You're aware that 'Fine' is actually an acronym?" Harry asked.

"Huh?"

"Yeah. It stands for 'Fucked-up, insecure, neurotic and emotional'." Harry told her. As he'd hoped, she stuck her tongue out at him, slightly cheered up. "Anyway, after lunch we'll have your first real shooting lesson, then I guess we'd better see if we can help Michelle and the cleanup crew."

"What time is it anyway?" Hermione asked.

"Quarter past midday." Harry told her. "You two slept like the proverbial logs. Any trouble with bad dreams?"

Hermione shook her head.

"No. I had a whole load of flying dreams, I think."

"Good." Harry said. "I kept up a light telepathic contact between us all last night, as I'm a weredragon I've got slightly more brain mass than a human; my dreams are quite lucid, and I can control their course to a degree. What that means is, you were not experiencing your own dreams last night; you were piggybacking on mine."

"Oh…" Hermione said.

Harry sighed.

"It can't go on forever, you need to dream your own dreams, but it'll work for a short-term solution."

"There was something I was wondering, Harry." Hermione said.

Harry cocked his head. "What about?"

"It's about those relatives of yours." Hermione said.

Harry growled.

"Hermione, I still don't have any idea how I stopped myself killing them." He told her.

"Why didn't you?" Hermione asked. "I mean, knowing you, and after how you described them, I'd, well…"

"You'd have expected me to turn them into something the consistency of chunky salsa." Harry said. "It's simple, really. I was helpless. They had me completely under their power. They could have killed me any time they liked, and they very nearly did on a few occasions. I am better than those scum, and what I did was make them very aware that the only reason they're still breathing is because I gave them permission to breathe."

"Oh." Hermione said. She thought about it for a long moment. "Harry… I've… got an idea."

"What?"

"What they did to you wasn't even remotely legal." Hermione said. "What about we contact the police?"

"Where's the evidence?" Harry asked.

"Firstly, inside your head. And secondly, if you really bled that much in that cupboard over the years…"

"DNA traces. You're right." Harry said with a thoughtful nod. "The question is, do I want to open that can of worms? People are bad enough about 'the ooh-aah la-de-da Boy-Who-Just-Won't-Fucking-Die' anyway, if that information got out there'd be a Hell of a stink. It wouldn't just be a case of pulling in the usual suspects; political heads would roll."

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Lunch was a quiet affair, and after it Harry collected a couple of boxes then led Hermione down the firing range.

He placed one of the boxes – a plastic briefcase-type thing – on the range-top table, opened it, and lifted out a compact grey metal pistol, which he quickly checked was clear, then put back down.

"This is the Heckler and Koch P7M10 handgun." Harry said. "It was originally designed for the German police. I picked this weapon for a damn good reason, and it's not just because the Germans make bloody nice guns. The P7 is one of the safest handguns I have ever seen; it won't even cock unless you've got it properly gripped, and never mind going off. It is now yours. I want you to carry that gun at all times, until you feel a bit odd without it. I want picking that gun up every morning and strapping it on to become as automatic as putting on your panties. A gun that isn't on your person cannot do anything to protect you; a gun that's in its holster on your hip is ready to save your life. You might very well never need it, but if you do need it and you don't have it you're in deep shit."

Hermione carefully picked it up, making sure the barrel was aimed downrange, and turned it over in her hands.

"My first gun." She said, a feeling of awe creeping over her.

"Nine-tenths of H and K's production is earmarked for the offworld market." Harry said. "When the Treaty of Roswell collapses they'll be one of the few Earther companies who come out in a secure position. That is not a coincidence; H and K make some of the all-round best kit on Earth, and even by galactic standards their guns are nice. Now, back on subject. The P7 has what's called a grip safety, in other words that protrusion at the front of the pistol grip. When you squeeze it down, it cocks the hammer; if you release it, it decocks the hammer. It's one of those simple little things that H and K do that I find myself wondering why nobody thought of before. Hell, offworld guns with that sort of grip safety are copying it from H and K. It means you can carry the P7 with the magazine in and a round in the chamber without worrying about blowing a hole in your leg; hell, you could probably juggle the P7 without setting it off, though I wouldn't advise trying as it counts as buggering about with a gun, which is the easiest way to get in my bad books."

Hermione slowly nodded.

"Right." She said.

Harry took the gun back off her.

"You'll often see people in movies holding guns like this." He said, straightarming the P7 downrange. "Unless you're a cyborg, the only thing you'll hit like that is whatever you weren't aiming at. Every time you squeeze the trigger a gun gives you a kick in the wrist to make sure you're paying attention, so you hold your gun like this."

Harry shifted stance so he was stood with his feet well apart and the P7 gripped firmly in both hands.

"You don't put your finger on the trigger unless you're about to shoot. You keep the barrel pointed somewhere safe unless you're about to shoot. Hell, the only time that gun should be out of its holster is when you suspect you might be about to shoot, or when you're practising. Is that clear?"

Hermione nodded.

"Good." Harry said. "Now, I want you to fire at least four magazines a day, without fail. I'll arrange for ammunition and targets. On most ranges, you're supposed to use ear protectors. I don't believe in the things; when someone's attacking you, you can't go 'Excuse me a moment while I get my ear protectors' and if you're not used to the bang, your aim might get spoilt by you flinching because of the barrel report from your own gun. We can always get you a new set of ears, or you can just, you know, deal with being a bit deaf; we can't get a new Hermione."

Hermione nodded once more.

Harry grinned at her, and proceeded to have her load and clear the P7 repeatedly until he was satisfied with her movements. He then showed her how to load a target into the range mechanism, then had her actually start shooting.

Once four magazines were empty, Harry proceeded to show Hermione how to reload them, then got out a box.

"This," he said, flipping it open, "Is your gunbelt. It's black because black can be persuaded to go with any colour. I can get you several different styles and colours so you've got a gunbelt suitable for each outfit, but I don't want to ever see you wearing a gunbelt that doesn't have the same layout. You'll see a lot of fancy fashion gunbelts, but they're worse than useless – most of them make the gun difficult to draw, and the same goes for the magazines. Talking of which, these are so-called magazine holsters; each of 'em fits two magazines. I've given you two of them for the same reason I've given you five magazines. That's four to practise, and a fifth to have in the gun on the way back."

"Isn't it a bit overkill even having it loaded between here and the dorms?"

"One word; Flint." Hermione's face fell, and Harry nodded before continuing. "There are more bastards just the same as him, I know for a fact there's an average of three sexual assaults a week in this collegium; you're just unlucky enough to have been the first this year. OK, sure, I gave the bastards something to think about." Harry paused. "Look, Hermione. If you hear about any girl getting attacked, put her in touch with me; I'll set things straight if you get my drift, and I don't give a fuck what house she's in. That's what our little club is about… I want you to promise me Hermione, if you get attacked again, aim for the head and keep squeezing that trigger until the bastard stays down."

"What is it with this place?" Hermione quietly asked.

Harry sighed "Take a couple hundred fuck-heads with inferiority complexes and put them on a power trip, then stir in all sorts of race hatred, old feuds, wars, disagreements over who owns which donkey, the Nalfers refusing to recognise anything female as sentient, and other such bullshit. Oh, and avoid having any real supervision. Instant mess, just add a thousand or so uninvolved innocents to get chewed up and spat out."

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Dumbledore's phone rang, so he picked it up.

"Hello, Dumbledore here."

"Albus." Came the caller's voice, and he immediately knew who this was.

"Hello, Gabe." He said.

"Had my boys pick those Dursley people up." Gabe said. "Right enough, their under-stairs cupboard's stained by blood, urine, faeces and a certain amount of vomit. We've got DNA from two individuals – Dursley and a male pre-Change shapeshifter. There's easily enough to convict, but when we did the psych profiles on those two we found something weird."

"Something weird? Like what?" Dumbledore asked.

Gabe sighed.

"Someone's tampered with their minds, a while back from the look of things. Replacement of some emotional responses for the main part, looks like it happened somewhere between ten and fifteen years ago."

"What do you mean?" Dumbledore asked.

"I mean someone used mind control techniques to engineer what they did to the Potter boy." Gabe said. "There's no hope of erasure – the alterations have got too deep into their psyches. I've seen that style before."

"Where? When?" Dumbledore asked.

"During the Voldemort insurgency." Gabe said. "Several of the proven mind-control victims displayed the exact same sort of modifications."

"I need to contact someone." Dumbledore said.

"I'll keep you posted. Let me know if you find anything." Gabe told him.

"Willdo." Dumbledore said. Gabe put the phone down on him.

Dumbledore stared at the handset for a few minutes, hit the hang-up switch, then began dialling.

Arabella Figg had some extremely awkward questions to answer.

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The rest of Sunday was spent helping Michelle ferry assorted boxes, bundles and articles of furniture into the now-clean practise chamber, all of which she firmly stated were absolutely vital. Hermione ended up in Harry's room again that night, and the next morning it was class time again.

Introductory Magecraft with McGonagall went as per usual, then lunch, and it was time for the one class nobody in Gryffindor was looking forwards to; alchemy.

They entered and seated themselves, Hermione taking the seat closest to Harry and wondering why he had his pixie sat on his shoulder; he was also walking an old beer bottle cap across his knuckles.

"I wonder if we'll be able to get Snape force-fed happy pills." Ron remarked.

"Good luck, Weasely." Harry said. The hook-nosed grease-haired one himself chose that moment to enter.

Harry snapped his fingers as Snape entered the room. The beer bottle cap went zooming across the lecture hall, ricocheted off the blackboard and dinged Snape in the ear.

Snape glowered around, obviously not sure who'd done that.

"Ten points from Gryffindor for messing around." He said.

"Big baby." Harry muttered, just loud enough that Hermione heard it.

She failed to control the snort.

"Miss Granger, care to enlighten us as to what is so… _amusing_? Is it perhaps your first _whoring_ exploit?" Snape sneered.

Harry went very literally as white as a sheet as Hermione dashed off out the room.

Snape, on the other hand, looked faintly satisfied.

"Fifty points from Gryffindor for that little tart leaving without permission."

There was a noise like a distant gravel crusher as Harry's teeth ground together. S'tarak'hai heard that, and went a bit pale under his fur.

"Uh-oh." He muttered. "I've got her back, Johnson."

And with that he swung to his feet and sprinted flat-out out of the room.

"I warned you, and I warned the old fart." Harry said. "Looks like you both disregarded it."

"Fifty points from Gryffindor; that'll be enough of your cheek." Snape sneered.

Harry smiled. It wasn't a nice smile; it was the sort of smile that says 'You're going to regret the day you ever met me'.

Luna contemplated Snape for a very long moment, then frowned, reached into her shirt, withdrew a Stanley knife, and proceeded to very calmly slice her cauldron, incidentally cutting slots in the table in the process.

"What's with the Stanley knife?" Harry asked.

"It's got to be a really sharp Stanley knife, even by Stanley knife standards." Ron said.

"It's a vorpal Stanley knife." Luna said, finishing slicing the cauldron.

"A what?" Ron asked.

"Vorpal enchantment. Makes a blade able to cut through anything." Harry said. "It's at it's best on a forklift. You seriously put a vorpal enchantment on a Stanley knife? What for?"

"Whittling angle iron." Luna said. Of course, by this time Snape had docked Gryffindor two hundred points and Ravenclaw a hundred twenty, but the gang had decided to completely ignore him.

For now.

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Hermione froze when she realised there was someone there; she quickly looked round, and much to her relief found a certain massive sandy-furred catman crouching beside her.

S'tarak'hai silently offered her his handkerchief.

"I have a cyberbrain recording of the entire incident." He said. "Come; we are going to submit an official complaint."

"How come you care?" Hermione asked.

S'tarak'hai paused.

"Prathi R'hara'tath owe Johnson a debt of honour." He said. "Likewise, I owe him a debt of honour; I also owe him a debt of gratitude. He saved my life, and more importantly, he prevented the Nalfers dishonouring my family. He's decided you're under his protection, and that's good enough for me. Besides, you're a nice kid." He scooped her up, lifting her like she weighed nothing, and placed her on one massive shoulder as he rose to his feet; she felt like a doll in comparison to him.

"Professor Snape has gone too far." S'tarak'hai said. "I'm sure Harry's going to make that clear; he was grinding his teeth when I left, and that's a clear signal that he's going to unleash all Hell."

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Crabbe looked down as something bumped against his foot; Harry snapped his fingers, and the object he was holding went vaulting into Crabbe's cauldron, where it vanished with a greasy plop. Crabbe didn't notice; he was too busy wondering why there was a pixie jumping up and down on his shoe.

Snape glared at Harry. "And why exactly do you need to make that annoying noise, **Johnson**?"

"Just thought of something." Harry said. The pixie apparently lost interest in Crabbe's foot, and wandered off.

"Ten points from Gryffindor."

Goyle peered quizzically at the pixie that was stomping repeatedly on his foot. Harry snapped his fingers again; something vanished into Goyle's cauldron with a splut noise.

"Twenty-five points from Gryffindor." Snape snapped.

Goyle tried to kick the pixie; the pixie dodged the kick and ran off somewhere.

Pansy blinked and looked down when something landed on her foot; she found a pixie enthusiastically jumping up and down on her toes. By this time, Harry had snapped his fingers again; Pansy missed the small brown object that landed with a plop in her cauldron.

"Fifty points from Gryffindor." Snape remarked, sounding bored.

Pansy withdrew her feet and sat in a lotus position; the pixie left.

Harry sneezed violently. His cauldron responded by flipping over and landing mouth-down on the floor; the contact of potion on floorboards made an alarming sizzling noise.

Tara watched cautiously; the cauldron was slowly sinking into the floor.

"Fifty points from Gryffindor." Snape offhandedly remarked. "And you'll be staying behind to clear that up, **Johnson**."

"No I won't." Harry said. "It'll have melted right through by then." He idly stomped on the cauldron, sinking it a bit further into the floor.

Before Snape could say anything Pansy Parkinson's cauldron erupted, vomiting forth great globs of sticky toffee pudding at a highly energetic rate.

"OUT! OUT! GET OUT! EVERYONE LEAVE!" Snape raged.

Everyone left in a great hurry.

Harry stuffed his hands in his pockets and turned to Ron.

"Boom." He said. A pixie landed on his shoulder.

"What are you-"

Back in the alchemy lecture hall, Crabbe's cauldron exploded with such violence it blew a hole in the ceiling; white-hot shards of metal rattled off the walls as a thick cloud of grey smoke erupted from the doorway along with a shrapnel-splattered Snape.

"Aww, did Diddums get his arse full of splinters? Poor widdle baby."

"What the Hell was that?" Ron boggled.

"That was a breaching charge going off in a cauldron full of fuck-knows-what, though it turns out the fuck-knows-what was explosive." Harry told him. There was another tremendous explosion. "And that was a melta bomb in another cauldron of unidentifiable explosive gunge."

"You really will be expelled for this, Johnson." Draco piped up. "I can die happy now. I-"

"Don't tempt me. And anyway, the ones liable to be expelled are Crabbe and Goyle since it was their cauldrons that exploded."

"Ere!" said Goyle.

"What in the world is going on?" Dumbledore asked, arriving at a run.

"That was you and greasebag disregarding a warning." Harry said with a casual shrug.

"Is he dead?" Susan Bones asked, peering cautiously at Snape.

"God I hope so." Neville Longbottom muttered.

"Nah, it's just a bit of shrapnel." Harry airily stated.

"I think he wants someone to finish the job." Tara said, pulling her sidearm out of it's holster; it proved to be a sawn-off power armour plasma shotgun. "I think it'd be a mercy killing."

"That won't be necessary, Miss T'rash'gal." Dumbledore hastily said.

Alchemy was of course cancelled.

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Harry spent most of the afternoon along with S'tarak'hai, compiling an official complaint about Snape's remarks. They were interrupted when the Weasely twins came roaring into the hangout and sighted Harry, whereupon the two red-haired pranksters came zooming over.

"Harry," Fred began,

"Buddy," George put in,

"Pal,"

"Did you really,"

"Blow the alchemy lecture hall sky-high?" they chorused.

Harry smirked.

"Yup." He said.

"**Awesome**!" the twins chorused.

"How'd you do it?" Fred asked.

Harry smirked.

"Oh, I had my pet pixie distract Crabbe, and I tossed a standard Imperial-issue remote-detonated door-breaching charge into Crabbe's cauldron while nobody was looking. Then I had my pet pixie distract Goyle, and I tossed a standard Imperial-issue remote-detonated thermal anti-tank charge into Goyle's cauldron while nobody was looking." He explained. "Then once the whole class was out the room I set the breaching charge off, and then once Snape was out the room I set the melta bomb off. The fact that Crabbe and Goyle had concocted explosive muck was just a happy coincidence that might just have come about thanks to me altering their textbooks. Net result is the alchemy lecture hall out of commission, and since that's the only such room in the building they'll have to transfer alchemy to somewhere slightly safer."

"What do you mean, 'out of commission'?" George asked.

"I mean there's no ceiling, no floor, and the walls are partially caved in." Harry clarified. "Oh, and there's also a bloody great hole in the floor of the room underneath, which just happens to be the Slytherin hangout, and the ceiling of the room above, which just happens to be Snape's bedroom."

"You mean you gutted the Slytherin hangout too? I guess there wasn't anyone in there, right?" Fred asked. He didn't find carnage funny.

"I blew my cauldron over." Harry said. "It welded itself to the floor, burned through, and dropped it's contents on the Slytherin's snooker table. The contents then started emitting an extremely foul stench. That stuff's actually an Amerai riot control technique, about the only worse smell in the galaxy is an unwashed Vogon armpit. As you can probably imagine, the few Slytherins who had that period free promptly got the fuck out of there."

"But how did you do the pudding?" George asked.

"I lobbed a cheap one-way portal into Pansy's cauldron. The other end was connected to a cement mixer truck full of guess what."

"Sticky toffee pudding?" Fred checked.

"Sticky toffee pudding." Harry confirmed.

"Why sticky toffee pudding?" George asked.

Harry shrugged. "Well, it was that or lime Jell-O, and it didn't feel like a green slime sort of day."

End Chapter.

Slight update 14/July/07, in sentence about Harry's morning workout routine replaced spellchecker artefact 'goof' with correct word; 'good'.

AN –

Gaaaaaahhhh, _finally_. I've been stuck on this bastard for days. I keep having ideas for way further down the line (I spent three hours coming up with things for Harry to say to Quirrle/Voldie) but not for now. ARGH!

(Breathes deeply)

Nitro-glycerine is a rather temperamental liquid explosive. Dynamite is stabilised nitro-glycerine; considering that the stabilised forms are somewhat unstable, it should come as no surprise that pure nitro-glycerine can explode for no apparent reason; enough vibrations will do the trick, for example.

Claymore mines are a type of land mine that sprays a load of ball bearings out one side at bullet velocity; it's generally that side you want to point towards the enemy. Claymores are designed as antipersonnel mines, but they'll also work perfectly well on soft-skin vehicles.

Harry's 'Boy-Who-Just-Won't-Fucking-Die' line is me referring back to the Anime Addventure thread 'Silver Avatar', and of course the Just Won't Die fanfiction series; one of the more enjoyable super-Ranma fanfics.

The Earthshaker is Leon McNicol's giant three-shot break-top revolver from the original Bubblegum Crisis. It's an utterly bitchin' gun.

As for the H&K P7, it's a personal favourite 9mm automatic.

Doghead Out.


	17. Chapter 17

**This ain't no self-insert fic.**

**This ain't no slash fic neither.**

**This is Top Dog.**

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After the explosion in the alchemy lecture hall, things settled into a routine that received it's first interruption most of two weeks later. Snape was going to be off at least until after the October break due to the extensive burns and shrapnel injuries, and a somewhat worried and distracted Dumbledore was taking the alchemy courses; a disused lecture hall on the second floor became the new alchemy hall. Hermione ended up in Harry's room five nights out of seven; according to reports from his undercover agent in Hermione's room (ie Tara) the ginger girl spent the other nights repeatedly waking up screaming. The gang got together every couple of days to discuss things and train; Michelle's renovations of the old training room continued apace. Luna's appellation of 'CTMA' stuck after about the thousandth time she used it, not that anyone else had a clue what it stood for. If Harry knew, he kept it to himself.

The interruption came on the third Friday they were in Hogwarts when the evening papers arrived.

Hermione was just tucking into her dinner when, with a crack like a gunshot, a rolled up newspaper hit the table in front of her. She looked up.

Harry was stood there looking very calmly at her.

"My room." He said, his voice flat and hard. "Now."

Without another word, he turned and stormed off.

"Ho lee _shit_, he's **pissed**." S'tarak'hai rumbled. "You'd better get moving."

Hermione scrambled to her feet and ran headlong for Gryffindor turf.

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**Disclaimer: Duh, when I originally posted the last chapter I forgot to give it a title. I can but wonder what I was thinking about.**

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**Top Dog: Enter the Fnords**

**Book 1: Harry Johnson and the Headmaster's Socks.**

**A Doghead13 / United Galaxies fanfic**

**Written & produced by Calum J 'Doghead13' Wallace**

**Brought to you by Hairy Scottish Git Productions, GMBH**

**This is not a drill.**

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**Chapter 17: A little misunderstanding**

**(In which the old fart quits spying)**

She arrived at Harry's door, and only just remembered to knock.

"Enter." Came the deadly calm command; she entered.

There was Harry. He was cradling a hefty bullpup rifle in his arms and drinking from a bottle of absinthe, and he brusquely pointed at the opposite sofa.

"Sit." He commanded. She sat down, and he threw a newspaper at her.

"You've got about thirty seconds time to explain what the Hell you were thinking." He said. "Front page. Front fucking page. Didn't you realise how the media would jump all over this stuff with my worthless fuck relatives? Publicity is not what I need, Hermione. Aren't I already notorious enough?"

Now utterly confused, Hermione picked the newspaper up and had a read of the cover article.

'Boy-Who-Lived, abused!' the headline trumpeted. As she read, she started realising what Harry was talking about; he thought she'd tipped off the cops.

"It wasn't me." She said. "If you like you can use that mind reading thing to tell I'm telling you the truth."

Harry snorted.

"Mindspeech doesn't work like that." he said. "But I've got something that does." He sat forwards, setting the rifle and the booze down, and looked her straight in the eyes. Sections of his skin at his temples clicked open and disgorged little metal nodules fronted by clear plastic enclosing miniature camera lenses that focused in on her; a boom clicked out of his left cheekbone with another tiny lens at the tip.

Freaked out by the cybernetics, she met the gaze from his natural eyes, and froze. It felt like he was staring directly into her soul; something vast and alien and roaring with heat touched her mind for a fleeting instant, then he sat back and retracted his varied cybernetic sensors.

"Half the bloody paper's dedicated to 'Boy Who Lived' articles." Harry said, grabbing said paper and flinging it on the table. "Okay, if it wasn't… that stupid interfering old bastard."

"What?" Hermione asked.

"Dumbledore." Harry told her. "He can hear any noise that happens around me, I've no idea how, damnit. This all blew up when? Right after you suggested getting the police involved with my less-than-pleasant relatives. I figure this is an ass-covering manoeuvre on his part; if people found out he's complicit in what happened to me it'd be his head rolling."

"He might have some sort of eavesdropping charm on you." Hermione said.

Harry cocked his head.

"Elaborate." He said.

"Well, I was thinking about it after you showed up with veritaserum that time, and I found several ways of detecting scrying spells, but, well, stuff kinda happened and I never remembered to say anything about it." Hermione explained.

"Do it." Harry ordered.

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In his office, Dumbledore said, "Uh-oh."

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Hermione made a few passes with her athame.

Harry's forehead started glowing in a certain zigzag pattern in a certain place.

"… ye gods."

"What?" Harry asked.

"Well, the place where you had the scar is glowing, and when bits glow blue like that it means they've got a surveillance enchantment on them."

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In his office, Dumbledore said, "Oh shit."

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"That," Harry ground out, "Dirty. Fucking. **Rat**. _**Bastard**_."

"Um," Hermione said, recoiling away and nearly knocking the sofa over backwards; only quick action from Carla stopped her going over.

"Not you kid; Dumblebastard." Harry growled. "Not satisfied with fucking my childhood, now he's got to spy on me? I think it's time we had a little chat. Carla. Portable hole two."

Carla hastily pulled her skirt off and hooked it on the wall; Harry thumbed a part of the pattern, and the familiar shape of a portable cellar appeared.

This one was lined with weapon racks.

Harry selected a specific ammunition box, opened it, lifted out a massive 50mm grav rifle slug with a very worrying radiation symbol on the tip, loaded it into the giant Kenti sniper rifle he had set up on the tripod by the window, unlatched the rifle from the tripod and stood up, holding the enormous weapon like it weighed nothing.

"Is that…?" Hermione asked.

"Mass-energy conversion bomb." Harry said. "Stay right where you are, Hermione; we're not finished here. Carla, if she tries to leave, make her stay." He slid the shelves out the way, opened the window, stepped out onto the roof, and stalked over towards Dumbledore's bedroom window.

_**Crash**_ went said pane of glass.

"Oh boy, Master's _furious_." Carla murmured.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

In his office, Dumbledore said, "Ohbollocks." as he heard the shattering glass from the direction of the attached suite.

Maybe having his quarters and office in the tower next door to House Gryffindor wasn't quite such a good idea after all.

The door from his quarters came erupting off it's hinges, landing flat on the floor with a tremendous BANG, and Harry calmly stepped into the office.

"Choice time, old man. Either you take your fucking spying spells off me or I'll pull this trigger. Considering I've got my big gun loaded with a nuclear bomb, that'll void the warranty on this whole building." The calm was the same sort of calm as an unexploded bomb, or that God-awful silence after a car crash.

Dumbledore shakily nodded, and picked up one of the trinkets on his desk; it looked a bit like a snow shaker.

He calmly dropped it; it smashed when it hit the floor, and a faint cloud of blue smoke came out the insides. Likewise, a streak of blue smoke lifted from Harry's scar.

"Thankyou." Harry said, clicking the AV-DRKS's safety catch to 'On'. "You need to get your priorities straight, old man. You've got your perfect killer, now leave me alone and let me get my job done."

"How old do you think I am, Harry?" Dumbledore asked.

"You're a hundred and fifty-six." Harry said. "I've read your Department 44 dossier."

"… I see. Indeed; I'm a hundred and fifty-six years old. In that time, I have indeed learned what it is to fuck up."

"Meaning?"

"Meaning that I had no idea – absolutely no idea at all – about what you went through at the hands of the Dursley family." Dumbledore said. "My watcher did naught but assure me all was well. I had assumed that, being your blood relations, they would act like any decent human being. I don't know if you'll believe me, but I'm sorry, Harry. If there's anything I can do, just ask."

"Watcher?" Harry asked.

"Arabella Figg, who vanished some time between the first of August and the Friday where a certain unfortunate scene took place between yourself, your friend Hermione, and a certain now deceased Slytherin." Dumbledore explained. "It appears that the Dursleys were manipulated in certain very illegal ways, and I suspect Arabella was likewise co-opted.

"That mad old bat? Figures. Get me copies of the reports on the Dursleys psych evaluations." Harry said.

Dumbledore nodded. "I shall do so. I must confess, Harry, that I had expected a naïve, sheltered young man; when I saw what you were like during the meeting in which your attendance here was arranged, I was confused and worried. I now understand why you are the way you are. I had intended to carefully train you to fight and outwit Tom, but you're already very capable of doing exactly that."

"So why are you messing with me, old man?"

"I was worried." Dumbledore said. "I wanted to know; why were you such a mercenary psycho?"

"Thus the spying. Don't ever do it again. Ask me for information and I'll share what I'm willing to share. Check the dossiers for Hellhound Jackson, Slade Morely and Jason Lee; those are three identities I no longer use. Don't ask me why I did those things; I was either getting paid, or people pissed me off."

"You'd mean Hellhound Jackson as in the lone gunman who engaged in a one-man war against InterAur? Slade Morely the tomb raider? Jason Lee as in the Olympic gold medallist pistol shooter and martial arts movie star who started assassinating Triad operatives in Hong Kong?"

Harry nodded.

"Yes, yes, and yes." He said. "They're all me."

"Time travel, I presume?" Dumbledore checked; Harry nodded again.

"It's useful being the father of the Senshei of Pluto." He said. "So, it was you behind the cops nailing the Dursleys?"

Dumbledore nodded.

"I'd planned to visit them and give them a good kicking on my birthday for fifteen years." Harry said. "Oh well, no plan ever survives contact with the enemy."

"We don't need to be enemies, Harry." Dumbledore said.

Harry snorted.

"And we won't be, depending on a few things. One. Get Snape back under control. Two. Don't spy on me. And three. Don't interfere with my work."

"I shall endeavour to do so." Dumbledore said with a nod. He was getting rather impressed by the intense young man opposite him.

Harry nodded. "I gotta get mobile; I got a girl to talk to."

"Perhaps you'd best leave via the route you entered." Dumbledore said.

"Why?"

"Because there are currently seven people in the Collegium aware my apartment can be reached via the windows of two of the Gryffindor third-floor dorm rooms, and I'd rather the figure stayed quite low." Dumbledore said.

Harry nodded, swung the AV-DRKS onto his shoulder, and headed back towards the broken window. He leapt lightly onto the roof, sauntered over to his bedroom window, swung in and blinked, slightly nonplussed as he contemplated the scene. There had been a scuffle from the slight disarray the room was in; the scuffle had resulted in Hermione being disarmed and tied to a chair with great enthusiasm and a certain amount of artistry.

"You look cute wearing rope." He said.

"Harry-!" Hermione complained. "This isn't funny!"

"Yes it is." Harry told her, opening the AV-DRKS's action and lifting the shell out; he went and stowed it back in its box. "Much as I'm enjoying the show, I think you'd better untie her now, Carla dear."

"Yes Master." Carla said, very obviously enjoying the whole thing.

"Carla, where exactly did you learn shibari?" Harry asked, slotting a magazine of blue plastic practise slugs into the AV-DRKS.

"I learnt from a master, Master." The killer doll cheerfully remarked, undoing the final loop that had been restraining Hermione's arms.

"Oh?" Harry asked, putting the huge sniper rifle on it's tripod.

"Yeah, I learnt by carefully watching you, Master." Carla said, carefully coiling the rope as Hermione annoyedly stood up.

"I need a piss." She stated.

"Wait a minute." Harry said. "You needed to take a slash, so you tried to go to the loo. Carla jumped on you, and trussed you up like a chicken. Am I right?"

"Yes." Hermione said, looking annoyed.

Harry cracked up laughing.

"Yuk it up, lizard-eyes." Hermione grumbled.

Harry continued sniggering for a bit, then with a final chortle centred the sniper rifle's sights on the smashed bedroom window across the other side of the roof, and slid the shelves back into place obscuring the window.

"Go ahead and go take a leak, But you'd better be back here ASAP once you're done; we've got things to talk about." He said.

"Would you really have nuked Hogwarts?" Hermione asked.

Harry smirked.

"Actually, about that shell? It's what's technically termed a bluff." Harry explained. "I may be crazy, but I'm not suicidal. Most of the time when you're practising with an AV-DRKS you use lightweight plastic slugs; they accelerate to a much lower velocity so you can fire them on a normal range without voiding the warranty on the bullet trap and everything for a couple miles behind it. You fire that sucker with a depleted neutronium jacketed duranium penetrater up the spout and the bullet will break Mach 24 before it clears the barrel; say you stood one side of London, sighted across town and pulled the trigger, you'd demolish a line of buildings clean across town until the bullet reached a high enough altitude to miss stuff due to the curvature of the earth. It'd probably then head off into orbit. Anyway, I stencilled spurious hazard logos on my plastic ammo a while back for a laugh. I wanted something frightening to shove in the old fart's face, so I grabbed the one I'd marked with a radiation hazard marking. The conversion warheads don't have radiation markings; they're not radioactive."

Five minutes later, Hermione was back; she found three meals set at the table, and Harry and Carla waiting for her.

They ate, then Harry proceeded to get her as pissed as a fish.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

When she woke up the next morning, she found something she had not expected.

She wasn't in Harry's bed; she was on a low trundle bed beside it, a mattress with wheels that rolled under the main bed when not in use.

From then on, she switched over to sleeping there pretty much full-time. She felt safer and slept easier near Harry.

Time passed. It's one of those things it does. The C.H.A.R.G.E crew would stage races most weekends. At the Gryffindor gravball tryouts Harry was confirmed as Seeker for the Gryffindor team, and Hermione discovered that gravball resembles a hybrid of polo and dodgeball as played from 250+ mile-per-hour jet-propelled flying motorbikes; at the Slytherin tryouts, a guy named Gaylene Felcher (yet another Death Munchkin) became the new Slytherin gravball captain, and Draco was indeed made Slytherin seeker. Harry bought the Imperial speederbike from Bruce, and asked Hermione to help him do it up; she wasn't at all sure why she immediately said 'yes', but it certainly made Technomancy classes more interesting.

The fourth Friday, Michelle announced that the room was done; the crew trooped up there.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Wow. Transformation or what." Harry said, looking around what had been a dusty wreck of an old training room.

Luna, Michelle, Padma, Parvati and Lavender had done a real number on the place; it was dusty and dingy no more. A fire was roaring in the fireplace, which had been cleaned up and no longer had bits of bird nest scattered across it. A rank of old sofas surrounded the fire, and cupboards lined the wall each side of the door. Waterproof sofas had been set up on the balcony along with a garden table, and several paintings of martial scenes were along the wall above and beside the fireplace, along with a massive flatscreen monitor. Old rugs were clustered round the sofas, and a fridge sat in the corner; a quick check revealed it to be loaded with beers. The holodeck connected to the back left corner had been repaired; it was currently running a simulation of a traditional Japanese dojo.

"What's with the monitor?" Harry asked.

"It's connected to the holodeck." Michelle explained. "So we can sit out and watch people train, right?

"Hey, this is interesting." Ben said. He was examining the ritual circle; he looked up from it. "This thing's pretty complex. It's a 33-point circle."

S'tarak'hai let out a low whistle; Harry nodded.

"I've seen a 37-pointer." He remarked, crouching down to momentarily examine the circle. "Huh. Anyway," and he started passing round beers, "I'm going to modify the door so it opens at a touch for anyone whose auraprint's loaded into it as long as it's unlocked; that solves the key problem. After that, I suggest we start regularly meeting Friday evenings right after dinner. I've put a simple communication spell on our patches. Holding your thumb on the top half for five seconds will send a simple 'Emergency meeting' signal to everyone's patch. Holding your thumb on the bottom half will send a distress signal and an image of your location."

"Cool, so the CTMA can actually like, yell for help." Luna said.

"What does 'CTMA' stand for anyway?" Hermione asked.

Luna looked very startled.

"You… uh, don't know what it means?" she asked.

"Well, no." Hermione said.

Luna blinked several times, digesting that.

"It means 'Collegium Trouble Magnets Association'." She said. "I thought it was fairly obvious."

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

And so it went. Things entered a definite pattern; on Mondays McGonagall taught them all sorts of 'basics' then they had alchemy with a distracted Dumbledore, on Tuesdays they were confused by Urd then Setsuna rectified Snape's point-unbalancing, on Wednesdays they messed with machinery, Hermione and Harry mainly working on the speederbike, and then attempted to levitate while Harry and Madam Hooch talked jetbikes, and in the evening Harry had gravball practise, on Thursdays they admired animals then got frustrated by Quirrel's failure to teach, on Fridays they performed rituals with Flitwick then cultivated plants with Sprout, on Saturdays Harry had gravball practise while Ben went racing, and they did their combat magic self-study, then met up in the CTMA room and got drunk, and on Sundays they frequently hit the pub. All along the way Hermione found herself swept into a whirlwind of boozing, shooting, bragging, and biking. She and Harry frequently went out riding together on the roads around Hogwarts, occasionally going as far as Fort William; the Fenrir turned out not to be Harry's only wheeled-type bike; he also owned a collection of twelve assorted machines, including a Harley-Davidson WD45 chop which was his machine of choice for their going-out-biking sessions.

And in that manner the October break rapidly arrived. The first gravball game of the year would be the week after the break; Snape was likewise due back, which would presumably mean a resumption of Harry's war.

The CTMA shared a coach back. Hermione was a bit worried since her uncle and his crew were embroiled in something in Ireland, her parents couldn't make it to London to pick her up as their bikes were in bits, and she wasn't allowed to ride Dragonheart on the road anywhere near Bristol as the traffic cops in that area knew Jeff Granger had given it to his daughter who didn't have a license yet; she was going to have to take the mundane train from London to Bristol.

"Why the big situation?" Harry asked. Hermione pointed at the Luggage.

Harry grinned and got out his athame.

"Tell the Luggage to let me cast a spell on it." he said.

"Let Harry cast a spell on you." Hermione told the Luggage. "What are you going to do?"

Harry made a complex series of passes with his athame, tracing a bright blue line of wychfire in the air; the complex sigil he wove settled onto the Luggage, and an oval brass plate emerged from it's lid directly above the lock.

"It's a self-shrinking charm." he said. "Press your thumb against that brass plate and it'll shrink the Luggage to the size of your fist. Taking it out your pocket and putting it upright on the ground will grow it back to full size. It's not a permanent enchantment, so it'll have to be renewed by this time next year. Lasts about four hundred days, it's best to renew it with a couple months leeway because when it fades off is a mite unpredictable. I can do something permanent when we get back if you like."

Hermione smiled and thanked him, and they discussed plans for things to do to Snape the rest of the way to London. Hermione never realised how badly delayed the Hogwarts Express was getting until she was in the mundane part of King's Cross, the others had taken off, she saw the clock, and realised she'd missed the train to Bristol.

"Shit. Oh, shit." Hermione said. She carried on in that vein for a few moments, then decided what to do.

She went to a payphone and called her guardian angel.

"Johnson here, talk to me." Said Harry from the phone.

"Hi, Harry. It's me."

"Hermione? You okay?"

"Yeah, I'm okay, but I missed my train." Hermione said. "Because of the delay on the Hogwarts Express, I-"

"Gotcha. OK, get back onto Platform 9¾, walk through the tunnel to Daigon Alley, and I'll meet you there." Harry instructed.

"Okay, I'll see you there."

"See you in a couple of minutes." Harry replied, and hung up.

"… man, his phone manners suck." Hermione muttered, then shrugged and headed back towards 9¾.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Harry was waiting for her with the Fenrir when she arrived at the Daigon Alley end of the tunnel. He nodded at her and patted the back seat.

"Get on." He said.

"Are you sure us not wearing helmets is cool?" Hermione asked, getting on.

"Sure it is." Harry told her. "We are not going to crash."

"I wasn't worried about that, I was wandering about the fuzz."

Harry laughed quietly. "The traffic slime tries to pull us over, it'll be the last mistake they ever make." he said, and hit the kickstart; the engine came to life with it's unforgettable roar, and Hermione clung on for dear life as he launched them out into the hot muggy rancid grey drizzle falling from the distant ceiling of the underground street.

"Did you know there used to be a holographic sky projector and climate control gear in here?" Harry shouted over the engine's roar.

"No. What happened?"

"It broke down thousand of years ago. The main structure of Daigon Alley was built by Clan Scunamara just after the Kenti-Amerai War." Harry shouted.

The tunnel up to the surface swept past, and they made a hard left.

"So, where are we going?" Hermione shouted.

"My bike isn't my only wheels." Harry shouted back. "As a mercenary, I need a mobile headquarters of sorts. You'll see when we get there. It's currently orbiting on the M25."

"Um, I'm not sure how well I can stay on in the sort of traffic on the ring road. The truck backdrafts can get pretty bad."

Harry slapped his forehead with his left hand and took the next chance to pull in; he clicked the Fenrir's sidestand down.

"Stay seated." He said. Hermione rather bemusedly did so; he crouched down and flicked a latch by the left rear footpeg. A panel opened and a curved strip clicked out; he latched it down over her ankle and it clicked into place then changed shape with another click so as to fit perfectly; he then went round the other side and repeated that on her right ankle.

Then he tugged a latch under the seat unit; a pair of handlebar-like grips slid out the sides of the back.

"Hold those." Harry ordered. Hermione did. He clicked another latch, and fastened the metal loop down over her right wrist, then repeated the trick on her left wrist; again, the loops contracted to be a smooth fit. Then he tucked his fingers under the edge of the seat, pulled out what looked like a lap seatbelt, passed it round Hermione's waist, and clicked it into place. She was now securely strapped and shackled to the back of the bike; Harry nodded and swung back on.

"What's the deal with this?" Hermione asked, not sure what she made of it.

"It was designed to allow Cloud to transport a single captive on the back of his bike." Harry told her, and booted the kickstart; the Fenrir roared back into life. "Right, let's rock."

He swung away from the kerb, and soon they were powering up an onramp and into the brisk post-rush-hour traffic on the M25 ring-road around London.

Eventually, after driving about a quarter of the way round, they came up behind the biggest truck Hermione had ever seen. It was an Australian-style road train; it looked to be armoured, and the line of massive trailers looked more like railway equipment.

Harry pulled over to beside the truck's right side, and crept forwards. Hermione counted the trailers; there were twelve of them. She noted the exhaust stacks and diesel-engine roar coming from the rearmost trailer and the sixth back from the tractor. The tractor itself (what she could see of it from this angle) was one of those enormous American-looking rigs, with a bull-bar like a section of railway track, towering chrome exhausts, acres of chrome and a long bonnet sticking out in front of the cab; like the entire road train it was painted in a highly complex mural that mostly consisted of airbrushed girls in chains, shackles, and sexy lingerie. Aside, that it, from the third trailer, which was entirely covered in bar towels for no apparent reason.

When they got parallel to the second trailer, about ten feet aft of the first trailer, Harry started pacing the truck. Then he clicked something on the bike's clocks; a section of the trailer unfolded and neatly gripped the Fenrir. The bike's engine dropped to a gentle tickover with the added roar of the tyres across tarmac as Harry pulled in the clutch and closed the throttle, and then bike and riders were lifted smoothly into the truck; there was a series of clicks from the gearbox and a hiss from the brakes as Harry put the Fenrir into first and braked the wheels to stationary.

"What is this thing?" Hermione asked as soon as the hatch was sealed.

Harry smiled brightly at her. "This is my home-away-from-home; a 1944 New Australian Holden Sandrunner twelve-car road train, former Long Range Desert Police hardware, heavily modified of course." He got off the bike, unstrapped her from the back seat, and pressed a button; with a whirr of motors the bike was lifted up overhead to join a rack of assorted machines that Hermione hadn't noticed hanging above them. Now she'd spotted them, Hermione recognised several; they were bikes Harry had used at the Collegium. Presumably, his jetbikes were somewhere else in the truck.

"Come on up the locomotive." Harry continued. "I need to get us on course, then we can grab something to eat. Oh, by the way, you'd probably best stow your H&K in the Luggage for the break."

"It might be an idea, huh?" Hermione said, and followed him towards the tractor, carefully not touching things. The interior of the road train went beyond industrial, clear through militaristic, and out the other side into a techno-tribal wild zone beyond. The walls were lined with gun racks and ammo lockers, several of them marked with big radiation or biohazard logos. The floor was carpeted with exotic animal hides; more hides and carved wooden things adorned the ceiling. The hum of air circulators accompanied the ticking of a clock as they entered the first trailer; the trailers were connected together and to the tractor by flexible billows connections like those on a passenger train.

The first trailer was done up as a living room cum hangout much like Harry's digs at the Collegium, scattered with heavy rock posters, tribal art, firepower and computer systems; sumptuous silk wall-hangings were shoulder-to-shoulder with mounted skulls, dozens of swords on display stands, racks of guns, swathes of books and banks of computer equipment. Carla was reclining on a couch.

Finally, they entered the tractor. The interior of this was a bit like any other really frickin' huge tractor-truck, but finished in quilted red leather and polished wood like the inside of a pub; the steering wheel was composed of a loop of chain welded into shape with a chrome skull for a hub and wire spokes, and the dash was surmounted by a nodding Rob Zombie statuette. A girl was sat behind the wheel; she was dressed similarly to Carla, complete with the collar, but had soft pink hair and pointed cat-like ears.

"We're aboard." Harry said. "Set the course."

The cat-eared girl nodded, dropped one hand to the pair of gearshift levers, changed the position of one of them, and clicked a couple switches down on the dashboard.

"Look out, Bristol – incoming!" Harry declared as the cat-eared girl stood on the throttle.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Jeff Granger was working.

It wasn't his job he was working at – he was a practising dentist – rather, he was working at his passion. In this case, he was engaging in the task the builders of custom motorcycles dread the most; polishing. It cramps you up, it takes days (or even weeks) and it's utterly, _utterly_, repetitive.

So he was in a way glad for the interruption when the roar came echoing up the street.

Sticking his head out the garage, he saw what was possibly the most unique custom he had ever clapped eyes on. It was a hulking brute of a bike, with a single-sided swingarm and hub-centre steering; the fairing looked almost like it'd been designed by HR Geiger, and the chromed exhausts looked more like they were part of a machine gun. There was a goodly amount of heat damage visible on the pipes finish; this was obviously a bike that worked for it's living, not a pampered show bike or (curse the thought) a non-operational art bike.

And it _snarled_. The exhaust note was like an angry wolf.

The rider was equally distinctive; a tall, powerfully built young man with a bunch of swords across his back, their hilts sticking up over his shoulders, and guns at his hip. He wasn't wearing a leather jacket or helmet; just jeans, big boots and a muscle T marked 'Don't make me get my flying monkeys'. Said rider swung off, and started apparently unstrapping his pillion from the idling bike; said pillion was someone Jeff knew extremely well. His teenage daughter Hermione. There was absolutely no sign of the Luggage.

Hermione had a heavy ornate bracelet round her right wrist and her hair was a touch longer, but aside from that she hadn't changed. She rubbed at her wrists as she stepped off the monster bike.

"OK, see you next week." The bike's rider said, then gunned up his machine's engine; the back wheel spun up and he wheeled the bike 180 degrees round his foot, then tore off down the street with a roar and the unmistakable 'Kpshh' of a turbocharger's dump valve as he changed up and the monster bike reared up on it's back wheel.

Walking up the front path towards the open garage door, Hermione saw her father sat with a half-polished subframe in one hand and a polishing cloth in the other, staring in the direction Harry's machine had gone, his eyes wide, and a slight smile on his face.

Hermione knew that expression. It meant her father was inspired.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The October break passed quickly, and the morning they'd be putting Hermione on the train to London, the Grangers got a surprise when a certain motorbike came sweeping up the street.

When Jeff Granger heard that distinctive feral snarl, he leapt to his feet and dashed out the house. His daughter was right behind him.

He wasn't disappointed; the Fenrir was just drawing to a halt outside. The massive machine's engine clattered into silence and the rider swung easily off, flicking the kickstand down with his foot and resting the bike on it; the casual way the young man did that made it very obvious he was exceedingly familiar with his machine. This guy wasn't any fair-weather biker.

"Hey kid." Harry said as Hermione skidded to a halt. "Thought I'd offer you a run back."

"On the bike?" Jeff asked, startled.

"Duh, no." Harry said. "The Fenrir's a fucking beast of a bike, and a hell of a combat machine, but ideal for two-up long-distance travel she ain't. I've got a truck."

"So why'd you come here by bike?" Jeff asked, startled.

Harry snorted.

"Because the street's too small for my truck; it's a heavily armed and armoured twelve-car road train. So, fancy a lift?"

"Works for me." Hermione said.

"Cool. You get up to much over break?"

"I just spent most of a week polishing parts for Dad." Hermione shuddered. "I can't wait to get back to the Collegium, at least everyone's only insane there… So, what'd you get up to the last week?"

---\flashback\--

Harry smashed the vampire's face against the countertop again.

"Let's try this again. Do any of these names sound familiar? Snape."

The vampire nodded.

"Crabbe."

Another nod.

"Goyle."

More nodding.

"Nott."

You guessed it.

"Malfoy."

The vampire froze. Harry smashed it's face into the countertop even harder than the last time, leaving a dent in the hardwood.

"What's special about Malfoy then, fuckwad?"

"Listen, man," the vampire croaked. "It's more'n my life's worth to say fuck all about that fucking sicko."

"Yeah, so who are you more scared of right now? Me or Malfoy?"

The vampire remained silent. Harry laughed and threw him through the nearest window. "So he's got a reputation that big. Interesting."

He turned to leave and a pair of hulking hell-hounds got in his way.

"Oi, elf-boy; you don't come in fucking here and fucking act like you fucking own the fucking place." The bigger one growled.

Harry hauled out his SPAS12, blew the ugly brute's face off, kicked the other hell-hound in the groin hard enough to make it sing soprano for a month, and sauntered out to his bike, casually knocking over the pair of demon's hog cycles as he went; as the roar of the Fenrir's engine faded down the street, the customers and staff of the demon bar slowly began to relax.

Then the Claymore mine he'd left under the bar went off.

---\end flashback\---

"Nothing much." Harry said. "I just hung out in London. Ran into an old friend though."

---\flashback\---

As soon as the man caught sight of Harry he went very pale.

"Johnson!"

Harry recognised the voice and shot him seven times as he turned to run.

He sauntered over to the slightly battered figure. "Stop whining, Skorzeny. It'd take more than that to finish _you_ off. Now, we're going to go somewhere quiet and, uh, _discuss_ what you're doing in London."

---\end flashback\---

"Talk about turnup for the books. Oh, and he gave me a hot tip about a new band, the gig was well worth catching."

---\flashback\---

There was an enormous CRASH as a man kicked the doors in; a slug gave the big portrait of Adolph Hitler a third eye, then he opened up on the horde of neo-Nazis; the band abruptly went silent as a spray of bullets scythed the stage. In the cage up near the ceiling, the half-dozen Jewish girls the crowd had been going to ritually tear to bits later that evening watched with awe the dancing form of their saviour, shifting through the crowd like smoke, and everywhere he went the hail of lead from his M-60 machine gun's barrel came roaring across like the hand of Death.

---\end flashback\---

"Pretty quiet week, really." Harry concluded.

"I've gotta go finish packing." Hermione said. "You'll be okay chatting with Dad, right?"

"Sure." Harry said.

Hermione hurried inside; Jeff gave Harry a cool look.

"She's been talking about you all week." Jeff said. "You two dating?"

Harry shook his head.

"I'm the guy who's teaching her to defend herself." He said. "There was some nasty shit went down, and she reminds me of my mother in a whole load of ways. Besides, she's way too young for me."

"Whatever. You'd better not hurt her. Her uncle's with the Hell's Hippies and he's kinda protective of her. Just thought I'd warn you."

Harry sketched a slightly mocking salute.

"I read you, man. Trust me on this; the only way anyone hurts her again is by dealing with me first. Don't get me wrong, I like the kid, so I've been watching her back."

"What do you mean, 'again'?" Jeff growled.

"She was attacked about a week after the start of term." Harry said.

"Define 'attacked'."

"I mean she was clubbed over the head, dragged into a quiet corner, and raped." Harry told Jeff in a bland voice. "Incidentally, I shot the worthless bastard responsible two hundred times once I was done skinning him alive."

"What the Hell kind of a place is this college?" Jeff asked, appalled.

Harry shook his head. "It's a mess. There's this gang of racist fucks who think they own the goddamned planet; well, they've got another think coming. Look, Granger. I'd like you to understand something. Imagine a weapon capable of blowing a crater half a mile across with a single quarter-second blast. Now make that weapon able to maintain a continuous beam of destruction at that level pretty much indefinitely. Can you imagine a weapon like that?"

"No." Jeff said.

"I'll give you a hint." Harry said. "One calls you 'Dad'."

"What the fuck are you saying?" Jeff growled.

"I'm saying your daughter's the most powerful sorceress on the record." Harry said, jerking a thumb over his shoulder in the general direction of the house. "Her reaction to being born was felt halfway across the galaxy. She's the functional equivalent of a fully-loaded ballistic missile submarine; there are all too many people out there who'd want to mindwipe her and control her. That's why I'm teaching her to look after herself. She's a good kid, and a quick learner. Yeah… I like the kid."

"OK, that's me ready." Hermione said, coming walking out the house; she was dressed in her leathers and had a set of riding goggles around her neck.

Harry nodded and made an ushering gesture in the direction of the Fenrir. "Hop on."

Hermione swung onto the parked bike's back seat, positioned the goggles over her eyes, fastened the seatbelt, felt around under the tailpiece, clicked the latch, and gripped the handlebar-like protrusions, then grinned and waggled her eyebrows at Harry, who chuckled and fastened her wrists and ankles into place.

"Leather suits you." He remarked as he locked her left wrist down, casually patting her thigh with his spare hand. "Right, places to go, shit to get done. Let's get dangerous."

"No lids?" Jeff doubtfully asked.

Harry chuckled.

"My head is harder than any crash helmet ever constructed. My bike is combat hardware and able to stabilise itself. Believe you me, the safest place Hermione could possibly be is with me."

And with that he swung aboard, flipped the sidestand up, booted the kickstart, and aimed the bike towards the motorway and the waiting road train.

Jeff watched them go.

"Shit." He said. He wanted to get Hermione out of that college and back home in Bristol where the biggest worry was stupid twits with big stereos, exhausts like sections of drain pipe and spoilers on their Novas, but he knew he couldn't.

He could just pray to any deity who might be listening that this Harry person was as capable as he claimed. So that was what he did.

Then he went back to tightening nicely adonised bolts.

---End Chapter---

AN-

That was quick! But then, half of this chapter has been written for a month and a half – today I just filled a few gaps.

If you want to know who 'Skorzeny' was and you don't know that bit of real-world history, look up 'Otto Skorzeny'. The connection with Nazis should rapidly become highly apparent.

The M25 is a continuous loop of motorway (which is what we Brits call an expressway) that entirely encircles London. It's one of Britain's busiest stretches of road, and suffers from extremely frequent traffic jams, especially in rush hour.

Truck backdraft is the wall of air being carried along behind a truck. A friend of mine was knocked off the back of his dad's bike by a truck backdraft one time; on another occasion I was lifted up enough that only my hands were actually touching my bike for a moment. It's a frightening experience. Presumably, Hermione's had a close shave with a truck backdraft, and considering that Harry rides the Fenrir a lot faster than a Harley or an old Brit-bike can go, that'd make the wind-blast even more intense. She presumably had experience with the backdrafts on the ring-road when Crazy Stan ran her down to London at the start of term.

Riding without a lid is for dumb people. Nobody (as far as I know) here in the real world has a head quite as hard as Harry's, or the ability to transform into a whacking great winged lizard and whisk himself, his bike and the pillion passenger out of trouble. Several of my friends are only still here today because of a humble skidlid – be kind to brain cells, you'll miss them when they're gone, and your friends and family would _really_ miss them if they were splattered all over some car-driving myopic twat's radiator grille.

Doghead Out.


	18. Chapter 18

**This ain't no self-insert fic.**

**This ain't no slash fic neither.**

**This is Top Dog.**

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Severus Mercurio Snape was not in the most pleasant frame of mind. Today was Friday; the Hogwarts Express was on route, bringing the students back from the October break, and he was being contemplated by a somewhat pissed-off boss.

At least he'd got out of hospital.

Dumbledore contemplated him right back. Snape had historically been a much more professional lecturer. He was an asshole and he didn't particularly care who knew it, but the mania with which he'd gone after anyone who wasn't a Slytherin over the first week of the college year beggared belief.

"Are you aware quite how close you came to being killed?" Dumbledore asked.

"I beg your pardon?" Snape asked.

"You stopped nearly half a kilo of shrapnel." Dumbledore told him. "The reaction from most of the students was 'I hope he's dead'. Severus, you cannot carry on like this, or within a month or two I shall be looking for a new alchemy lecturer, either because you'll be dead or you'll be fired."

"F-fired?" Snape asked, visibly shocked. "B-but!"

"No buts, Severus. We are dealing with some extremely dangerous shellshock cases this year, not bratty small children. Take Mr R'hara'tath. He's Kenti special forces and he's been 'in the shit' enough he's far from sane. Take Mr Chaos. Have you the faintest idea of the things that man went through during the Jedi Civil War? Take Mr Johnson."

"Must I?"

"Yes, because if you do not he is going to kill you." Dumbledore snapped. "Mr Johnson was on Shenth, at Garg's Landing. He was one of the eight surviving defenders when the Kenti relieved the city."

Snape went even paler than usual and started tapping the knuckles of his left pinkie on the table, a most un-Snapelike nervous twitch.

"Kenti military psychologists have diagnosed him with paranoid schizophrenia and psychosis." Dumbledore continued. "Oh, and he's an Arcadian-cross weredragon."

Snape recoiled so violently he knocked the sofa over.

"He's _what_?"

"In short, I think it'd be best if you ceased to provoke my great-grandson." Dumbledore said, sitting back and peering over his half-moon spectacles at the flabbergasted alchemy master.

"He's **what**?"

"As you know, Harry Johnson is actually Harry Potter, the son of Lily Arieth Evans. Lily happens to be the daughter of an RAF officer who was shot down and killed by the Luftwaffe whilst Lily's mother was pregnant with her. An RAF officer by the name of Radanel Dumbledore, who was my eldest son."

"… I had no idea." Snape blankly stated, still tapping his knuckle.

"Obviously." Dumbledore said with a sharp nod. "Severus, I hate what has happened to every last one of my descendents, and I wonder if perhaps my line might be cursed. And I will not have you turn my great-grandson into a murderer; if needs be I shall sack you to prevent that and to save your fool life… I realised you and James didn't get on, but I didn't realise it was that bad. I almost wish I hadn't told you who Harry actually is… This isn't like you, Severus. What happened to the old Severus, the one I like and respect?"

Snape grimaced. The knuckle tapping was beginning to get on Dumbledore's nerves.

"I… can't say, Albus." He said. "I… will endeavour to… curb my… reactions to… those – young… people." Then he turned and fled the room.

"What's wrong with him?" Dumbledore murmured. The more time passed, the less Snape was acting like the Snape who Dumbledore knew.

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**Disclaimer: Please imagine this is the funniest disclaimer joke you've ever seen. That would be nice, wouldn't it?**

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**Top Dog: Enter the Fnords**

**Book 1: Harry Johnson and the Headmaster's Socks.**

**A Doghead13 / United Galaxies fanfic**

**Written & produced by Calum J 'Doghead13' Wallace**

**Brought to you by Hairy Scottish Git Productions, GMBH**

**This is not a drill.**

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**Chapter 18: Back to Collegium**

**(In which our hero discovers something quite intriguing)**

At the moment that Dumbledore was lecturing his wayward lecturer, Hermione Granger was feeling very glad she was firmly strapped to the back of Harry's bike.

Apparently, the road train was on the M25 again and Harry intended to ride there from Bristol. And as he rode a Fenrir-specification Corley Motors VX-21 Steel Wolf, a New Australian racing bike rebuilt for combat, capable of breaking two hundred and fifty miles per hour and costing more than a starfighter, the journey from Bristol to London was proving to be one Hell of a ride. Harry was treating every car like a mobile chicane and every bend like a challenge, aptly demonstrating why he was wearing kneesliders as he got one down on every corner, sparks flying as the duranium kneepad skidded across the tarmac.

All in all, Hermione was half thoroughly relieved when they reached the massive road train, which was currently parked in (and entirely filling) a lay-by. The other half, her inner adrenaline junkie, was faintly disappointed that the wild ride was over. The clicking from the engine as it cooled and contracted when it was switched off showed how hard Harry had been working the Fenrir; he'd given the bike a real workout.

Harry unstrapped Hermione from the bike, grinned at her frazzled expression, and headed for the cab. He paused in the first trailer.

"Make yourself at home, but don't go further back than the second car. I'm going to have to drive, Carla can't."

"Where's that pink-haired girl who was driving last week?" Hermione asked, slightly puzzled.

"She's in the sickbay in car seven." Harry said. "She caught a bullet last night."

"I thought you said you'd had a quiet week?" Hermione asked.

"I did." Harry told her. "Only thirty-five fights. Thought I'd catch way more trouble – I was farming for information on the Death Widdlers and I ended up running into Otto fucking Skorzeny and some of his fascist pals. Kitten got shot in the guts when I raided one of their safehouses, she was acting escape driver for me. Nice Cozzie, pity it got so smashed up, the owner's not going to be a happy bunny, I hope he had his mods on his insurance."

"What do you mean?" Hermione asked.

"Someone fired a Kalashnikov at us while we were taking off." Harry clarified. "Only one of the bullets hit the car, but it punched through the bodyshell and hit Kitten in the abdomen, pretty much disembowelled her. She only just made it. I had an interesting moment in the process – we were in a Ford Escort RS Cosworth and we were already at sixty MPH when Kitten got hit. I had to grab the wheel and reach my foot across to the gas, and driving like that isn't easy, I clipped a few things. Anyway, I'm gonna get us rolling." He walked through to the tractor, swung over the back of the seat, slotted the keys, and turned them.

The sound the Sandrunner made as it started up was certainly memorable. First there was a whirr of electric motors; one of the clocks spooled rapidly up, and as it hit 4,000rpm the engine started bogging and whirring. One piston after another caught, until after a few moments the rough clatter of firings settled into a deep, heavy throb. Another clock started spooling up, and there was a distant repeat of the start-up grumble, then a third clock joined the fun, this time without audible engine response.

"I'm right this thing has three engines?" Hermione asked.

"She's got triple Holden Firebird V-12 24-litre capacity diesels, each of 'em dual supercharged, each turning a generator." Harry said. "These dials are the engine rev counters. There's six of them and space for more because there's no limit to how many cars you can couple to the locomotive, as long as you keep adding a power car for each six cars. Anyway, one engine's in the locomotive, the others are in the two auxiliary power cars – that's the sixth and twelfth car. The transmission's electric, every wheel is powered by a non-linear electric motor rated at 700 brake horsepower. It takes a lot to move this thing, especially over rough terrain, and she was designed to operate in the New Aussie sunside deserts. The Long Range Desert Police use these beauties as mobile bases."

With that said, Harry put the monster into gear, placed his booted foot over the throttle pedal, turned the stereo on, and trod down. The engines revved up to 8,500rpm, and the truck started rolling.

"Um, what sort of area is the New Aussie sunside deserts?" Hermione asked.

"New Australia's got the most fucked-up rotational period in the known universe along with the highest count of large moons." Harry said. "Firstly, you have the planet's primary rotational axis. The planet turns on this axis once every twenty-two and a half hours; the poles of this axis are pointed directly towards and away from New Australia's sun. Secondly, you have the planet's secondary rotational axis. The planet turns on this axis once every hundred and seventy standard years; the rotational poles of this axis are geostationary and parallel to the planet's orbital path. This means that New Oz has a hundred-and-seventy-year day-night cycle and there are two points on the planet's surface that are always at ninety degrees to the sun. This, along with the planet's screwed-up magnetic field, gives New Australia the unique accolade of having an east pole and a west pole as well as the traditional north and south ones. Basically, it's tumbling drunkenly through space, which is kinda appropriate really. The only inhabitable area is the strip where its twilight and the parts of that which aren't on the move and therefore have cities are at opposite ends of the planet. Nightwards of that its one big snowfield containing most of the planet's water; sunwards, it's a desert. The entire ecosystem is constantly on the move; they even have trees that move. Oh, and add in the fact that New Oz has a grand total of three hundred and forty-six moons, each about half the size of Earth's moon, all very close together and moving very fast, and you get some truly fucked-up weather patterns, helped along by the fact that there isn't a single point on the planet's surface that doesn't get totally eclipsed at least once every six hours. Anyway, the deserts are nearly half the planet, and there's a lot of bandits out there, preying on long-haul truckers for the main part. The Main Force Patrol is responsible for Highway One, the dirt track that circles the entire planet. The LRDP is responsible for the rest of sunside. The Nightside Police Force is responsible for the snowcap, and they only need like a force of fifty. Nobody of the not-suicidal type goes onto Highway One without being in a heavily-armed convoy, and the deserts are even worse. There's a lot of guys out there playing Mad Max. Trucks like this give the LRDP a mobile centre-of-operations and fire support; they wouldn't be able to operate without these rigs."

"So… what about supplies?"

"They're flown in directly to the convoy." Harry said. "The tanks give a range of nearly a thousand miles on veg oil, eleven hundred on diesel."

"Why not that etherium stuff?"

Harry chuckled and gave the dashboard an affectionate slap.

"Power to weight, Hermione. Power to weight. A well-designed piston engine puts out more power than a fusion turbine the same size and weight. This is a police vehicle designed for operation in terrain like Earth's Sahara Desert. It needs to be fast, tough, and powerful. Then there's Highway One; it's as straight as an arrow for eleven thousand miles. Only curvature is because of the planet being somewhat round."

"Why do the power cars have to be spaced out like that?"

"They don't, but there are fuel tanks along the entire bellypan of every car and this way the fuel doesn't need to be pumped such a long way. I've seen a Main Force Patrol road train nearly three miles in total length, with a power car every 270 feet. All the cars have computer-controlled steering that makes them maintain the same course as the locomotive. Of course, the MFP only build road trains that long when they're short of superconvoy rigs, and that's extremely unusual."

"Wow… Harry, what's a superconvoy rig?"

"Imagine a tractor-truck about the size of a heavy frigate, like an Alice Springs-class, with a grand total of twelve axles, five on the trailer and seven on the tractor, each sporting double wheels, making for a forty-eight wheeler." Harry said.

"Um, I don't know how big a heavy frigate is." Hermione told him.

"You don't? Huh. Guess naval architecture hasn't come up." Harry mused. "The League's Alice Springs-class heavy frigates are just over two thousand feet, bow to stern. A superconvoy's a couple hundred feet shorter. Anyway, now arm it with enough firepower to outgun the entire US Navy, and give it a tokomak reactor for a powerplant. They're capable of about a hundred miles per hour regardless of load, and they're damn near unstoppable – you need naval firepower to even slow one of those things down. The MFP usually only use road trains like this one for their outrider units that travel ahead of, abreast of and behind the superconvoy rig. There isn't a road anywhere in Britain that a superconvoy could actually fit on, and the same goes most places on most planets. They're only particularly useful in the New Aussie outback or other such sandy wastelands. Some New Aussie corporations use them for transporting luxury cargo out to the citycrawlers. There's a few in private hands – those ones belong to indy truckers who 'liberated' rigs when Sazan-Barker went bust… a road pirate gang got hold of one a few years ago and it's still somewhere out in sunside. Heh, out on Highway One time tends to slip past you, and seeing one of those monsters coming looming up over the horizon is a good way to scare yourself shitless. If it was flying the Jolly Roger – you'd turn your road-train right round and floor it for Crashzone."

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"Yup," Barry McLennan said, putting his feet up on the dashboard of his Toyota. "Every couple of months they make a return trip. I've got pals all the way between Fort William and London who've seen her."

"You shitting me?" Tony Stuart asked. "There's nothing about the run, ever."

Barry nodded. "I've been trying to find out what's going on for years. All I know is, the locomotive's a Garrett, 4-8-4+4-8-4. Nearest I've been able to find to her is an Australian AD60, but she's to the British loading gauge. And get this; she's in a crimson livery I've never even heard of. She's got heavy smoke deflectors, American-looking couplers but a full set of buffers, and from the way her cab's closed at the back she must have a mechanical stoker. She's a beautiful machine, yet she's not a class I've ever heard of and none of my pals have been able to identify her. We went through the whole file of Beyer-Peacock and Alco drawings; no luck. The rest of the rolling stock looks like old London North Western stock but with continuous corridors, six corridor composites and a brake, it's definitely fitted with steam heating and vacuum brakes."

"Get away." Tony said, finding all this less and less believable. The evening service for Oban growled past; Tony took a photo of it anyway since he liked Class 37's.

"I'm telling you, as soon as this one clears the section she'll be coming up like a bat out of Hell." Barry said.

Tony turned his attention to the nearby signal, waiting for it to go green. Fifteen minutes passed, then it obediently did so, and Tony turned his attention back down the line; Barry raised his video camera to his shoulder and grinned to himself.

They didn't have to wait long. The blood red locomotive came storming up the incline at the head of a line of fifteen antique carriages, her exhaust blasting into the autumn air like a machine gun.

But their attention was rapidly diverted from the train when they saw what was coming roaring up the road, dust lifting from beneath it's insane quantity of wheels; the biggest truck either railfan had ever seen, with a stretch of trailers as long as the train they'd been waiting to spot.

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Due to the route of the road, Harry's rig arrived in Glenfinnan well behind the train, and had to pick its way up the Hogsmeade road at a little under twenty miles per hour; by the time he, Hermione and Carla walked into the great hall, everyone else was sat down and tucking into dinner. Seats had been saved for the latecomers.

"… she farted and the house next door blew up." Ben was just saying when they arrived at the CTMA table. Whatever that meant, it caused considerable laughter from everyone at the table. Hermione figured it was the punchline to a joke.

"Where's catboy?" Harry asked as the laughter died down. "Where's Luna for that matter?"

"Luna's buying dope from that Frououshtequoo in Hufflepuff, what's his name, Yagser Ruddate I think. Oh, and she's naked again. She says it's no-clothes-day." Tara said. "As for S'tarak'hai, he's not back yet."

"Odd." Harry said with a frown. "He's normally punctual enough to set your clock by."

"I think he headed back to Kendarat." Tara said. "It's quite a trip in an old sled like his."

"What kept you lot?" Bruce asked.

"I drove up." Harry said. "We were right behind the train coming out of Fort William, but let's just say I drive quite a big vehicle and it took a while to get up the Hogsmeade road. Turning's going to be a cock – I think I'll have to uncouple the locomotive, back it up, three point turn it, and couple it to what's normally the last car."

"Are you saying you drive a road train?" Tara asked. "I thought they were illegal in this part of Earth?"

"Technically, yeah." Harry said with a nod. "However, I've been on HM S.I.D's ally list for a while now, so the mundane police forces of Britain are under instructions to turn a blind eye where my rig's concerned. Anyway, it's a twelve-car 1944 Holden Sandrunner with a lot of modification work."

Ben shook his head. "Quite a machine, mate. You really do get around, don't you?"

"A bit, yeah."

"Hi, guys." Said Luna, arriving. She was, for the second occasion since Hermione had known her, stark naked.

"Luna, not that I mind the view or anything, but why in the fuck are you naked?" Harry asked.

Luna blinked. "It's no-clothes-day."

"That's what Tara told me you said. So, what's that mean?" Harry asked.

Luna considered that for a few moments, then pointed down at herself.

"It means I don't wear clothes today." She said.

"Yeah, I figured that, but why?"

"Because it's no-clothes-day."

"Changing the subject a touch," Ben hastily said, noticing how annoyed Harry was getting, "Hagrid's invited me down to his place for what he called 'a whee welcome back dram', and he said to bring some friends. Anyone interested?"

"Me." Harry said. "Coming, Granger?"

Hermione nodded.

"I'll come." Ron said.

"Got stuff to get done." Tara said. "Sorry – I didn't finish my homework over the break."

Varied others made varied excuses, and so it ended up that, on finishing dinner, it was Ben, Harry, Hermione and Ron who headed down towards the gamekeeper's house at the bottom of the green.

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"Evenin' folks." Hagrid cheerily said as they clattered in the door.

It was the first time Hermione had been in the big man's house, though she'd seen it from the nearby firing range plenty of times. The place was all traditional drystone with an aged wood-lined interior. Little pieces of Scottishness were scattered around the room, ranging from a silver quaich to a couple of watercolours of Skye to a big old nautical map of the Inner Sound. A massive salmon was framed on the wall, along with a Brown Bess musket and a Cleimorr, and a bass fiddle hung beside the musket, with an acoustic guitar the far side of it, and a silver boson's whistle the far side of that. Bottles of fine single-malt whiskey lined the solid stone mantelpiece over the roaring open fire, along with a smugly grinning toby jug. The furniture was battered and unmistakably old and half a dozen ancient glass fishing buoys were clustered on the windowsill, along with a section of curving sea-stained red-painted timber bearing the markings 'UL231 Prosperity II', and a wooden lobster pot. A set of bagpipes sat in one corner. At the other end of the kitchen / living room was sat a big old cast-iron stove, on the top of which a pot of something that smelt of venison was simmering away.

Oddly, there was a motorbike in the back corner of the room. It currently had an old overcoat, a couple of sheepskins and a massive crossbow-looking thing piled against and on it.

"C'mon awa in." Hagrid continued. "Ah jist opened a fine Glen Moray; tis a braw whiskey indeed."

"Is that what it looks like?" Harry asked, pointing at the motorbike

"Aye." Hagrid doubtfully said.

"So, why've you got a Corley Twin Titan lowrider in your living room?"

"Ah dinnae lak tae talk aboot it." Hagrid grumbled.

"It's a crying bloody shame, that's what it is." Harry muttered. "Funny… that bike looks kinda familiar." He ambled over to the machine, and pulled the sheepskins aside, revealing dusty black-and-flames paintwork across the biggest fatbob fuel tank Hermione had ever seen, and a studded leather seat with an inbuilt shotgun holster. "Yeah, it looks very familiar. This is the bike you took me to Surrey on, isn't it?"

Hagrid looked very startled.

"Wha are ye?" he asked.

Harry paused.

"My identity varies." He said. "In the last while, I've been known as Slade Morely, Hellhound Jackson, Jason Lee, Harry Johnson and Darth Venger. But… my original identity is Harry Potter."

"Crivvens!" Hagrid boggled. "Ah wouldnae hae ken it if ye hadnae tole me! Last time Ah saw ye, ye whair just a whee babby!"

"So, I'm right that's the bike, right?"

"… aye." Hagrid said, thrown off track.

"That'd explain why you're so screwed up about this bike." Harry said. "It belonged to Sirius Black, didn't it?"

"… aye." Hagrid repeated, looking pained.

"Don't blame the bike for it's owner." Harry said. "I own a Corley Vector X-1 that once belonged to Grindlewold. Nice bike. I completely rebuilt and repainted it, Himmeller wouldn't recognise it. You wanting to sell that bike? I'm interested if the answer's a yes."

Hagrid slowly shook his head.

"Nae." He said. "It's nae mine, ah shouldnae sell it. Och, enough a' this; come awa in an' tak a seat, an' ah'll fix ye a whee dram."

"Do you play the bagpipes?" Hermione asked, deciding to change the subject since the big man was getting so uncomfortable.

"Aye." Hagrid said, nodding solemnly as they settled themselves and he collected some whiskey glasses. "Ah play the bagpipes, an' ah'm told ah'm nae twa bad at it. Ye'll hae a chance tae hear it come Bairns Nicht."

"Why not now?" Ben asked.

Hagrid looked a bit embarrassed as he poured the whiskey and handed glasses round.

"Och, well…" he said.

"Aw c'mon Hagrid mate, you're an excellent piper and it's way too long since I heard really good piping." Ben said, accepting the glass.

"Och, awa whi' ye, Ben… Och, okay."

Hagrid picked the bagpipes up and began to inflate them.

"This is ma tribute tae th' band Runrig frae Skye. Tis a bonnie whee tune called 'Breaking the Chains'." he explained, then let rip.

Over the next four minutes, they discovered that Hagrid was indeed an excellent piper.

Once the impromptu pipe recital was done, the conversation moved to other things. After Harry asked a couple of questions about the big crossbow-looking thing (and got confirmation that it was indeed a Wookie bowcaster) Ben asked where 'Fang' was.

"Yon big daftie's asleep." Hagrid said, extended a large foot under the tablecloth, and kicked something.

The something went, "Grunk".

"Wak up yeh big daftie!" Hagrid said, having another kick.

"Rorf!" the something went, and a massive canine head poked out of under the tablecloth. It saw Ben, and came erupting out along with the attached immense hound.

"Calm doon." Hagrid told the huge madly wagging dog as it tried to lick Ben's face.

"Hey, this guy a Fenrisian wolfhound?" Harry asked as Hagrid got the huge dog calmed down.

"Aye, that he is." Hagrid said, sounding rather smug. "A pedigree dug, twa."

"Huh, cool. Hey, something you'll probably dig." Harry said. "There's a Cerberus hound down on sub-level three, just along from the main stairs."

"How'd ye find that?" Hagrid asked, sounding shocked.

Harry shrugged.

"You can thank Draco Malfoy for that, yellow bastard that he is." He said. "Sub-one, room twenty-six has a dumping floor enchantment on it. Ditched us into sub-three corridor five. The Cerberus hound is three turnings away from there if you follow the fire exit signs."

"Ah'll mak sure it's sealed up." Hagrid said. "Ah ken aboot yon hound, his name's Fluffy, he's a big saftie but yeh dinnae want tae bother him."

"So how come that hound's up in the castle?" Harry asked.

"That's 'tween ma boss an' Flamel… och, Ah shoulnae hae said that." Hagrid shook his head. "Dinnae fash yairseel aboot that, it isnae yair concern."

Harry grinned disarmingly. "Consider it forgotten about."

They hung out, drank whiskey and chatted for another half hour, then the four students headed back towards the dorms.

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Harry waited until they were halfway back to the castle before he spoke.

"Very, very interesting." He said.

"What is?" Ron asked.

Harry chuckled. "You know that Cerberus hound? Like to know what it's guarding? A Philosopher's Stone."

"Strewth…" Ben boggled.

"Something like that, yeah." Harry said with a nod. "I'm going to have to cultivate a friendship with MacDuff; he seems quite likeable, the old fart obviously trusts him, and he's got the mental defences of a baby."

"A Philosopher's Stone? You're serious?" Ron boggled.

Harry nodded.

"Deadly serious." He assured. "The 'Flamel' he mentioned is Nicholas Flamel, the master alchemist. As it happens, Dumbledore was an apprentice of Flamel's. Anyway, the Stone. The big question is how am I gonna nick it?"

"You shouldn't steal things!" Hermione gasped.

"Nee, that stone is a ticket to serious butt-kicking badassness for anyone who manages to get hold of it." Harry said. "It's too powerful to leave with an idiot like Dumbledore. The two most famous capabilities for a Philosopher's Stone are of course transmutation of compounds and brewing the Elixir of Life, but it's got other _much_ more interesting uses, especially to someone who's already unageing, such as Yours Truly. This all comes down to the pros and cons of how we Amerai's regeneration works."

"What do you mean?" Hermione asked.

Harry smirked.

"Amerai regeneration is almost but not quite perfect." He said. "We can't regenerate an instantly fatal wound such as decapitation, that's a given. The big problem with our regeneration is the way wolfsbane messes it up. Well, if an Amerai's on Elixir of Life, they don't have the wolfsbane problem. They just keep right on regenerating. Now, consider that you need two things to make Elixir of Life; a Philosopher's Stone and water. You boil the Stone, it transmutes the water into Elixir of Life. I have Arcadian dragon blood, thus my core body temperature is a little over four hundred degrees Celsius; this has what we call possibilities."

"What are you getting at?" Hermione asked.

"I intend to get hold of that Stone, cut a bit off, and implant the bit inside myself in such a way my throat automatically diverts part of any water I swallow through the baking hot Stone and then directly into my bloodstream – if you shoot up Elixir of Life it keeps working for nearly ten times the duration." Harry said. "Bingo, instant stupendous powers of healing that get reinforced every time I drink something."

"What about the rest of the stone?" Ron asked. "Sell it?"

"Nope, I've got big plans for it." Harry said. "And I'm not talking something boring like destabilising the global gold market, though that could be good for a few laughs."

"So… what are you talking?" Ron asked.

Harry let out a low maniacal Evil Scientist Laugh.

"Dude, there are so many fun things you can do with a Philosopher's Stone it beggars belief." He said. "Do a bit of research."

"Harry, how come you didn't just read Dumbledore's mind to find out about all this?" Hermione asked. She wanted to change the subject; talking about immortality drugs was freaking her out.

"Mindspeech doesn't work like that." Harry said. "It works because most sentients subconsciously project their surface thoughts a short distance, like five or six metres. A sentient dragon like Your Truly projects their mind about two hundred metres, and can 'hear' those projected surface thoughts within that area. It's what's called non-invasive mind-reading. That means, if you've got mental defence training, a psi-shield or whatever, a dragon can't read you. It's a weird experience the first few times; it's like your eyes and nose and ears are telling you there's someone there, but your mind's ear is telling you there's nobody there. There's some emotional leakage if you're close enough so I've got a good idea when the old fart's lying or leaving things out, but I can't tell which and I can't tell what. Same goes for most of the Death Munchkins, a lot of other purebloods, and surprisingly enough Quirrel – they've had some basic mental defence training. Snape's got very impressive shields – I can't even get a lock on his emotions when I'm right in his face. Only other people I've seen shield themselves that well are Jedi, Ben included. Now, if I focus through the Dark Side I can do invasive mind-reading, but using the Force like that is completely non-stealthy; you read someone like that, they are going to know about it, especially when it's coming from an Arcadian dragon. I'm told it's a bit like being looked in the eye by God."

"That's a good description." Hermione muttered.

"When's he ever read your mind?" Ron asked, shocked.

"Remember that upset with the newspapers?" Hermione asked.

Ron nodded. "Ah, I get it."

"It was like something big and ancient and powerful and alien and _burning_ was looking into my soul." Hermione said.

"You're pretty perceptive." Harry remarked. "My brain weighs around a quarter of a ton, I'm older than I look, powerful oh hell yeah, I'm about as human as an alligator, and my core body temperature's well above the boiling point of human blood."

"… quarter ton brain?!?!"

"The biggest and most sensitive sensory organ in a human is their skin." Harry said. "In a dragon, it's our brain. When I'm not in dragon form, it's pushed into a dimensional pocket, but it's still very much there. My IQ's similar to a very intelligent human, but my brain can multi-thread; I can think of around a hundred and twenty-five things at the same time, and if I focus my attention on thinking about something, I can get a photoreal mental image of it in technicolour full-sensory surround sound 3d. Oh, and my memory's photographic. Another weird experience the first time. Having over a hundred trains of thought running through my head took some fair old getting used to." They arrived at the front door to the Great Hall. "Enough about that subject, walls have ears you know."

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Severus Snape was in a good mood.

That is something like saying Hell just froze over, but all the same, it does happen from time to time. Snape only normally had good moods when he was unloading pallets of reagents, which he'd just been doing.

His good mood came to an abrupt end when he saw what was on the notice board by the Great Hall door.

It was a poster, showing a photograph of him, and bearing the words, 'SNAPE ASSASSINATION FUND'.

He read it, a creeping feeling of horror sinking in as he went.

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Tired of being kicked around by that grease-haired fuckbrained arsehole who calls himself an alchemy tutor? We are now collecting to pay for the assassination of this arrogant dweeb! Only NAU$10,000 required, and Snape will be nothing but an unpleasantly greasy memory! Send donations to: Snape Assassination Fund, C/O Harry Johnson, Room G308.

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"I told you not to push me, fuckwad." Said a voice from just behind Snape; spinning round, he found Harry smirking at him. Ben Chaos, Hermione Granger and Ron Weasely were standing a bit behind the smug weredragon.

"You son-of-a-bitch!"

"Don't you fucking dare bring my mother into this." Harry snarled. "Or I'll take this fucking personally and cut the charge by two grand, got it? Your head has a price, fuckballs. Keep acting the little bitch and someone's going to hand me the other seven and a half thousand New Australian dollars, at which stage I'll blow your greasy fucking head clean off, you read me? I had nothing against you until you started your bitch routine. Well, guess what? I've got something against you now, and you've got your own piss-ant little attitude to thank for that."

Snape glared at him for a long moment, grabbed the poster off the notice board, and went storming off to show it to Dumbledore.

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Dumbledore contemplated the poster.

"I see." He said.

"Is that all you can say?" Snape asked.

"No, I can say other things, such as 'Would you care for a lemon drop' and 'Don't say I didn't warn you'." The elderly man stated. "That is a rather apt demonstration of what I warned you about. Our students are not cowed children, Severus. They are armed young adults."

"Can't you at least try to keep an eye on that _bastard_?" Snape growled.

Dumbledore shook his head.

"Harry's _good_." He said. "As soon as he cottoned on to my surveillance, he ran one of the most comprehensive bug sweeps I've ever seen. Some of the kit he's got has to be Department 48 equipment – I've got no idea how he got his hands on gear of that grade. I was using a Clan Hakkenan trick I learned off a renegade I met during the cleanup of Grindlewold's troops in China. I'd taken a fairly normal surveillance enchantment, tied it to relay vibrations in the bone of his forehead, and anchored it at this end. I must admit, I thought it was pretty much undetectable. Well, I hadn't factored in Hermione Granger."

Snape looked faintly puzzled.

"What's Potter's girlfriend got to do with it?"

"Everything." Dumbledore said. "She used a very basic Detect Listener."

"I am unfamiliar with that spell." Snape said.

"It causes any object that's enchanted as a bug to release visible light, usually blue." Dumbledore said. "Because of the way I'd set it up, all that should have happened was the spell anchor in my office glowing. However, she must have been so desperate to prove it wasn't her who'd upset Harry that her aura provided; if she'd put that much power behind a Flare Arrow, there would now be a crater two or three miles across where this building stands. I'm glad my cybereyes have flare compensation –the spell anchor momentarily flash-blinded me even despite them. From what Hermione said, the spell must have flashed back and made Harry's forehead glow."

"Is she seriously _that_ powerful?" Snape boggled.

Dumbledore nodded. "Severus, compared to her, Merlin was a squib. Whoever has Hermione Granger under their power has the potential fifth most powerful weapon in known space, and I think I know who's going to have control of her in this coming war."

Snape heaved a sigh. "I wish I didn't have to deal with that bloody psychotic."

"I'm afraid we're stuck with him." Dumbledore said. "The more I see of him, the more he seems to fit into the actual prophecy – it's odd how closely our decoy resembles the wording."

"What _is_ the authentic prophecy, Albus?" Snape asked.

Dumbledore shook his head. "I'm afraid I cannot tell you; that's between me, Sybil Trelawney, and James Potter. I can tell you this much; not one word of it made its way into what you carried to Voldemort. All of that 'The one with the power to defeat the Dark Lord approaches' drivel was made up on the spot by James. We intended to lure Voldemort into a trap. We did, but nothing like what we'd intended. Anyway. I'm afraid there is very little I can do about this; I can but suggest you carefully moderate your actions."

Snape nodded, grimacing, and abruptly stopped tapping his knuckle.

"I'll do what I must." He said, and turned to leave; he paused in the doorway and looked back over his shoulder at Dumbledore.

"If the Potter brat's really as dangerous as you seem to think, perhaps you'd… be – best to… approach him on – his… terms." He said.

"What do you mean, Severus?"

"Of/F/f/F/fer – t-t-t/TO paaaay th/TH/e – lit/IT/itle… ba/AS/AS/ast/stard t/TO – k/K/i/I/ill th-th-the – Daaa/AAA/ark… dark Lo/OR/OR/Ord." Snape ground out, and fled the room.

Dumbledore stared blankly after the fleeing alchemy master. That little lot sounded more like a half-crashed AI than an alchemist.

"What the Hell?"

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S'tarak'hai was still absent when the quartet arrived, but the rest of the CTMA were in their usual corner of the Gryffindor dorm, along with the crew of the Blink Dog. Harry vectored directly over there and seated himself in his usual place; Carla came and rested her head on his knee.

"I've found out what the old fart's got hidden in the basement." Harry said.

"Don't keep us in suspense, mate." Bruce said.

Harry smirked.

"A Philosopher's Stone." He said, keeping his voice low so nobody outside the group could hear.

"Crikey!" Bruce boggled, then his expression turned worried. "Harry mate, are you going to steal it?"

Harry nodded.

"I don't get it. Why'd you want some boring old rock?" Michelle asked.

"Blarka wurt kabakka ploorg twa wurt-wurt-wurt blarg flortle heeka twarg-twarg henge turgle twakka WURT! honk wug WURT-WURT-WURT! honk blarg-blarg-blarg kapaka WURT! gokka trag honk twa WURGLE-WURGLE! Wurt?" Ben clarified.

"Oh." Said Michelle, sounding absolutely stunned.

"Er…" said Ron.

"That was spar'WURT!trog, mate." Ben explained.

"Splar… you what?" Ron asked.

"He means Covenant-ese." Michelle provided. "It's my first language."

"Oh, right… Wait a minute, how come English isn't your first language?"

"Loooong story." Ben said, rolling his eyes.

"Cutting said long story down to size, you know about the Covenant, right?" Harry asked.

Ron shook his head.

"Right. The Covenant were a non-humanic horde of sorts that dropped in out of intergalactic space about five centuries ago on some sort of crusade. Religious fanatics, go figure." Harry explained. "They ran smack dab into the Irken Armada on exercises with the Imperial Klingon Navy, and got pretty thoroughly chewed up... there weren't many survivors. A couple of Covenant species went renegade before the end; the Elites and the Grunts. Anyway, the survivors eventually scattered pretty thoroughly through known space. Some of them are still playing at wartime, but others have assimilated into galactic society. One Elite in particular, this hardass old lunatic called KapawakaWURT!wurt, is the chief of security on the Cowabunga."

"So, that's how come those two speak that weird language, right?" Ron asked.

"KapawakaWURT!wurt babysat all us Chaos kids." Ben said. "Well, apart from Ryoko and Alana, but that's because they were born way before Dad met KapawakaWURT!wurt. Between Ryoko's mom being Washuu, and Alana's mom being dead until Sasami grows up, and my mom being stuck in Asgard, and Dad being totally insane, well, there's not much parenting going on in the Chaos family just now. Ruka got hit in the head when Michelle and Jenny and Stevie were six months old, and she didn't wake up until they were twelve, so until then it was basically up to Nenk and KapawakaWURT!wurt to raise them, so they kinda learned spar'WURT!trog first since it's the only language Nenk and KapawakaWURT!wurt both spoke at the time."

"We also learned Zeurghnorfian and English and Klingon and Juraian." Michelle happily provided. "KapawakaWURT!wurt speaks spar'WURT!trog and Klingon and Juraiain, and Nenk speaks spar'WURT!trog and English and Zeurghnorfian."

"So what language do you think in?" Ron asked.

Michelle looked confused for a long moment.

"All of them mixed together." She said.

"She's rather bewildering to read." Harry supplied. "Normally when someone's thinking in one language, it sort of translates itself in the process of relaying – it's hard to describe. When someone's thinking in a mish-mash of five languages, it's almost like each bit is in a different voice and the sentence structure gets a lot screwed up."

Michelle giggled and latched onto his arm.

"You're funny!" she said.

"I don't see anyone else in here who's laughing." An unexpected voice rumbled, and S'tarak'hai R'hara'tath came padding into the room; the huge catman silently settled himself at the sofa, keeping a level gaze on Harry.

"What kept you?" Harry asked.

"I was back home. My father is getting impatient." S'tarak'hai said.

"I don't even know your sister." Harry said. "Well, I know _Reiana_, but I don't know your other sisters."

"That can be rectified." S'tarak'hai remarked, sounding vaguely amused.

Harry lapsed into faintly aggravated mutterings.

"We just want a direct answer, man." S'tarak'hai said. "Aria, Shar and Liaria want to put their lives back on track – they're getting tired of waiting."

"Fraid I still don't have a direct answer for you." Harry said, standing up. "I'm going to go finish cleaning up that electron torch. Have fun."

He slouched off, whistling to himself.

"What's with him?" Ron asked.

"Johnson's hesitant to commit to anything personal." S'tarak'hai said, slowly shaking his head.

"He's afraid of feminine rejection." Michelle said, sounding a bit sad.

S'tarak'hai considered that, and kept shaking his head.

"That's not it." he said. "I believe it's a factor of how little Johnson actually likes himself; he's hesitant to, and I quote, 'drag her down into his world' if he actually likes a girl."

"What do you mean he doesn't like himself?" Hermione asked.

S'tarak'hai glanced at her for a moment.

"You're aware he's a time-traveller?" he checked. "I've seen what happens when he meets himself. The level of palpable hatred two Harry Johnsons are able to project across the room at one another is a little alarming."

"You know what you need?" Parvati asked, pretty much pouncing on Hermione along with her cohorts.

"Uh, what?" Hermione asked.

"A makeover." Parvati and Lavender chorused, then collapsed in a giggle fit.

Hermione gave them a doubtful look.

"The only sort of people who can get away with those clothes are librarians." Lavender explained, poking at Hermione's jumper. "And it's a total waste, you're really pretty. C'mon, it'll be fun."

"They're right." Padma agreed, leaning forwards. "Your clothes are totally unflattering. That grey skirt, that granny-style cardigan… it doesn't work."

Ben and S'tarak'hai shared a doubtful look.

After another twenty minutes of niggling, Hermione finally acquiesced and followed the three other girls to Lavender's room.

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There came a knocking upon Harry's door.

"Enter." He said, picking up the Earthshaker.

The door opened, and Dumbledore came in.

"Ah, I was expecting to see you." Harry said, putting the Earthshaker back down. "This is about my little advert, correct? Take a seat."

"Not exactly, no." Dumbledore said. "Though it is a part of why I am here; I'd like to know if you're trying to psych Severus out, or do you actually intend to kill the man?"

"Little of both." Harry said with a shrug. "If he stops acting up, chances are nobody'll give me the money. That's why I stuck it up somewhere he couldn't avoid seeing it. I'm good at killing people, I've done plenty wet-work over the years; I used to pull assassination ops in the R'harash'gai't'rath underworld for the Thousand Kingdoms government, whacking terrorists for the main part though I nailed a few traitors, flesh merchants, kiddie peddlers, drug runners, kink artists, and other kinds of filth. When it comes down to it, killing is incredibly _easy_. Aim, fire, second bullet to make sure of the job, go pick up the paycheck. Most of the time I don't enjoy doing it; it's detached, the only thing you feel when you kill someone is recoil. It's hard the first few times, then something happens in your head and they stop being people – they're just moving targets that may or may not shoot back. If I like someone, I'll whack anyone who asks me to whack them. If I don't give a fuck about someone, it's twenty thousand New Australian dollars, cash only, unmarked used notes, no sequential serial numbers. In God we trust, all others pay cash. The more difficult the hit, the higher the price goes. As for people I don't like, assuming no complications, the more I dislike them the cheaper it gets. Snape's a ten thousand dollar hit because the little punk's really starting to get on my nerves."

Dumbledore frowned.

"I see." He said. "Harry, I have a query, the main gist of why I am here tonight. What is the price for the dispatching of Voldemort?"

"Twenty million New Australian dollars, half now half on completion, plus another twenty million to cover costs." Harry immediately replied. "Bastard's a dangerous piece of work, and whatever he's got that's keeping him in his not-quite-dead-yet state needs eradicated before I can put the fucker down. That kind of job tends to develop all sorts of complications."

Dumbledore nodded.

"Unmarked used notes without sequential serial numbers, correct? I'll have the first ten million ready tomorrow."

With that, he stood up and walked out.

"Interesting." Harry said. "Looks like I'm going to get paid to save the old fart's world after all."

--End Chapter--

AN –

I couldn't get the sequence with Hagrid to run any more fluidly – it's the cause for the delay this time.

This is a test. – ! " £ $ & ( ) - + ; : ' # , . / \ …

OK, once I preview this I'll actually know what non-alphanumeric symbols work on I've already been got by the percent sign; let's see what else happens.

Yes, there's a reason Snape's channelling Shodan. You (and the cast) won't get to find out about it for a while yet.

You really can run a diesel engine on vegetable oil. You have to heat the fuel tank and fuel feeds to stop the cold oil gumming the engine up, but it works.

A note about Barry's description of the Hogwarts Express locomotive; '4-8-4+4-8-4' refers to the arrangement of wheels. The first '4' means the locomotive has four unpowered leading wheels; the '8' refers to the forwards set of powered wheels (known as drivers) of which she has eight, then the second '4' shows that she has four unpowered trailing wheels on the leading unit. The plus sign (I don't yet know if FFN deleted it on me, if it did I'll replace it with the word 'plus') means she's an articulated locomotive, and the second '4-8-4' shows that her rear unit has the same arrangement of wheels as the leading one. That way of describing a wheel arrangement is known as the Whyte system. Concerning the comment about loading gauge; that refers to the height and width of railway equipment. Britain uses one of Earth's smallest main-line loading gauges; most European or American equipment would be unable to fit through British tunnels, bridges and cuttings.

Yagser Ruddate is an anagram of 'Grey Rasta Dude'.

A quaich is the type of silver bowl whiskey was traditionally drunk out of.

Fishing bouys really did used to be made from glass. They were basically a hollow 'crystal ball' looking hand-blown sphere, held to the fleet of crab pots by a net bag with the glass bouy sealed into it. They are normally green.

Cleimorr is the Gaelic spelling of 'Claymore', in this case referring to a traditional Scottish broadsword.

The sea-stained piece of wood marked 'UL231 Prosperity II' is a part of a decommissioned fishing boat; the section of the bows upon which the registration number was painted, in fact. 'UL' is an Ullapool registration. '231' is of course the reg number, and 'Prosperity II' is the boat's name.

All the above (and the other stuff mentioned in the description of Hagrid's house) is simply me turning our man Hagrid Scottish. As I remember, JK Rowling once referred to Hagrid as 'a West Country yokel'. I've turned the big lug into a Ross-Shire yokel, which is of course why I'd changed his name. The bagpipes are there for laughs.

Re the Mindspeech/mental defence discussion; I'd laid the 'Mental defence blocks it' down about draconic Mindspeech when I originally did the write-up on dragons as player characters for my role-playing game. However, this is in some ways an ass-covering manoeuvre; I'd clean forgotten that Harry would be able to hear the plottings of several key characters, in particular the Junior Death Eaters and Quirrel. Obviously enough, Quirrel has mental defence because of the Voldie in his head. The Death Munchkins need to be able to avoid Harry reading them for story reasons. Therefore, within Top Tog, pureblood families have a tradition of teaching basic mental defence techniques to their children…

Snape's question and Dumbledore's rant, on the other hand, is a blatant ass-covering manoeuvre. I pulled a boo-boo.

I gotta learn to shorten my notes. Well, see you all next time.

Doghead Out.


	19. Chapter 19

**This ain't no self-insert fic.**

**This ain't no slash fic neither.**

**This is Top Dog.**

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Harry let out an annoyed grunt as someone knocked on his door. Dumbledore had just left; he picked the Earthshaker back up.

"Come in." he said.

The door opened, and in came Tara. The inky-furred girl had a folder under her arm and looked a bit shaken up.

"Hey, Tara. What's up?" Harry asked, putting the Earthshaker down.

"You know your little defence club thingy?" Tara said. "I want in."

Harry cocked his head. "Take a seat. Why the change of heart?" S'tarak'hai had suggested inviting Tara to join, and even approached her, but her reaction had been very negative.

Tara sighed and slumped onto Harry's sofa; she dumped the folder on the desk. "Don't ask me where I dug that up. Let's just say I've got low friends in high places, and I visited a few of them over the break, and I just read the results. What I found… well, it pretty scary shit. You know the off-limits floor? The headmaster's using it to store a Philosopher's Stone, and it's a freaking _massive_ one."

"I know about it. They've got a Cerberus hound guarding it." Harry said. "It belongs to a master alchemist named Nicholas Flamel, who just so happens to have trained the old fart in alchemy."

"Yeah, but did you know how big it is?" Tara asked. "I found a list of people who made a Philosopher's Stone. Sixteen over the last hundred thousand years. Harry… most of them made chips, like the size of a bit of gravel. This one weighs two kilos!"

"How good is this information?" Harry asked.

"Rock solid." Tara said. "It's all in that folder."

"So why does the presence of that stone make you want to join our merry band?" Harry asked.

Tara looked him straight in the eye.

"Unlike you, I'm old enough to remember the Voldemort Insurgency." She told him. "I remember what it was like back then – I was eleven when he had his close encounter with Harry Potter, and we were working out of Clanspace back then, mostly around the Lioran Cluster, I remember when they fire-bombed Karukarasha… Unlike most people, I've seen the intelligence reports on what happened to Voldemort. He's not dead – he was basically exorcised out of his own body, he's been turned into a possessor spirit, and I recently found out that the slightest amount of Philosopher's Stone is enough to reconstitute a possessor spirit's body."

"Tara, I've got an eidetic memory." Harry said. "I can vaguely remember being born. I remember when the son-of-a-bitch came for me… did you know the snake-faced bastard headshot my mother while she was sheltering me with her own body?"

"What do you mean? You… oh shit, you're the boy-who-lived!"

Harry nodded.

"Harry James Sirius Logan Fawcett-Evans, that's me." He said. "I'd appreciate it if you kept that quiet. There's a reason I hold a gun on anyone who opens that door and there's a reason I've got the window covered; I've been the target of an unsuccessful assassination more times than I care to count. There are certain pieces of information that can get you killed; my identity is one of them and it looks like you've found another." He stood up and slouched over to his bureau, had a root around, unearthed a cardboard box, withdrew a CTMA patch and handed it to her.

"We all agreed you were more than welcome before S'tarak'hai originally invited you." He said. "Welcome aboard."

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**Disclaimer: All disclaimer data deleted due to containing information classified throughout the Thousand Kingdoms of Kendarat.**

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**Top Dog: Enter the Fnords**

**Book 1: Harry Johnson and the Headmaster's Socks.**

**A Doghead13 / United Galaxies fanfic**

**Written & produced by Calum J 'Doghead13' Wallace**

**Brought to you by Hairy Scottish Git Productions, GMBH**

**This is not a drill.**

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**Chapter 19: Pointless Bloody Death**

**(In which things begin to fall in place)**

Harry, Ron and Ben were sitting around in the Gryffindor hangout as per usual, Harry having finished his paperwork; they were drinking beer and talking about all sorts of random stuff; gravball teams, martial arts, guns and jetbikes had all come up so far.

Ben and Ron were just starting a heated argument about their favourite cars (the 1969 Dodge Charger in Ben's case, the 1856 New Aussie Holden Vector two-seater in Ron's case) when someone went "BOO!" from behind them.

Their reactions varied;

Ron nearly hit the ceiling.

Harry rolled off the sofa and came up with his E-Mag drawn.

And Ben fell off the sofa in a random tangle of limbs, yelling "FNORD?"

Hermione, Padma, Lavender and Parvati were standing there giggling at them; Harry stowed his gun and relaxed as soon as he saw who it was.

However, it took a moment for the other two guys to recognise Hermione.

"You lot trying to give me a heart attack?" Ron asked.

"Blarg! Woof! Argh, brain, do your stuff." Ben spluttered, getting up. "Woah! Hermione? BOGGLE!"

She was wearing a clingy leaf-green dress, corset and platform boots. Something had been done to her hair, changing it from it's usual wild frizz into a wave of rolling curls that reached nearly to the middle of her back.

"Wow." Ben said, getting his limbs and brain straightened out. "You're all dressed up, sheila. Nice."

Ron finally looked at Hermione.

His expression promptly resembled someone who'd been hit with a 40-pound sledge hammer.

"Stop drooling Ron mate, I saw her first." Ben remarked, elbowing Ron. Ron elbowed him back, and he fell over again.

Harry cocked his head.

"Looking good, kid." He said. "You lot wanna join us?"

The girls did.

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That night, Hermione dreamed.

She was in a dense forest. The going was tough, the trees blocked out the light, and the undergrowth thick.

She could hear a voice, begging for help, somewhere in the distance; she knew she had to get to that voice before it was too late.

There came a cry of pain and fear; she leapt into the air. Wind rippled past her body as she changed; her wings bit into the air with a mighty flap, shaking the trees, as she hurled herself forwards. She realised it was night-time as she cleared the treetops; the tiny amount of light that had penetrated was coming from the moon.

She alighted at one end of a clearing; here was where the cry had originated.

There was a sphere of silver light, guttering a bit; as she approached, it winked out, and the voice was no more.

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A hand roughly shook her awake; with a jerk, she found herself in the trundle bed, looking blearily up into Harry's eyes.

"You felt that too." He said. "Get dressed. We're moving out in one minute."

Hermione scrambled into her clothes, strapped on her gunbelt, gulped down the cup of brutally strong coffee he handed her, put on the jacket Carla handed her, then watched in bemusement as he heaved the shelves away from the window.

They stepped out into the cold midnight air; Harry took a couple of steps away from her, then sprang upwards in an impossibly high bounding leap.

As he went up, his body erupted, bulk rushing in from somewhere outside of time and space; scales the same sort of blue as a finely-made shotgun flooded across his rapidly-expanding as a set of mighty pinions erupted from his back and a serpentine tail thrashed behind him.

Once his transformation was complete, he settled lightly on the ridge.

He was an incredible sight, easily as big as a small airliner, with teeth like combat knives and claws that looked like they could rip through plate armour like it was sheet steel; and he was one of the most stunningly beautiful creatures Hermione had ever seen.

"Wow, Harry." She softly said.

Harry-the-dragon let out a low chuckle and scooped her up with one massive forepaw, then sprang from the roof; the air roared past, and Hermione's stomach dropped like a rock as Harry's wings came down in a powerful flap, driving dragon and handful of shocked girl into the air.

He flew out straight for the Forbidden Forest.

Soon Hermione could make out where he was going; something silvery, highlighted by the moonlight, in the middle of a long clearing.

Both of them recognised their surroundings; it was just as it had been in the dream. Harry returned to human form as he touched down, setting Hermione onto her feet, and the two approached the silvery thing, which proved to be a dead body.

It wasn't a human dead body, or even anything vaguely humanoid. At first Hermione thought it was a pony or small horse.

Then she noticed the horn as Harry muttered, "Oh _shit_." and put a hand on her shoulder.

"Don't bother." He said. "I've got special forces-grade cybernetic armour, the bullets would bounce off and make me angry. And you don't want me angry."

"Whatfor yon female?" asked a deep, rough-sounding voice, and a massive black-haired figure stepped out of the edge of the woods.

He too was visibly non human – his human-like form ended at the waist, where he was attached where the head should be to a massive, powerfully built horse, with fur was as black as the centaur man's hair.

Like Harry, he was visibly armed; he was holding a very modern automatic rifle, complete with optical sights and an underslung grenade launcher. The only thing he was wearing was combat webbing, heavily laden with ammunition and a couple of sub-machine guns.

And Hermione didn't miss the fact that she was currently looking down the sights of his rifle from the wrong end. She moved closer to Harry.

"Can ye prevent bullets reaching _her_, wyrm?" the centaur asked.

"I-" Hermoine started, but Harry clamped a hand over her mouth.

The centaur cocked one eyebrow as he closed on them. "Mayhap ye must learn to control thy slave, wyrm. Or mayhap others shalt control it for ye."

"Harm a hair in her head and I'll make you wish I'd just shot you." Harry flatly stated. "Not so long ago a fuck-head pureblood-supremacist found that out the hard way. He did _not_ go gently into that final goodnight."

The centaur snorted and swung his rifle onto his shoulder; Harry kept his hand clamped over Hermione's mouth.

"Did you lot see anything?" Harry asked, jerking his head at the dead unicorn.

"There dwells a beast at the castle." The centaur said. "A beast outside the order of nature; it defies the law of life and death, and that of _decency_."

"Some clarity would be nice." Harry snapped. "Whatever kind of sick aberration it is, it already nailed one creature that should never have been harmed."

"Nay, wyrm; three victims has it taken." The centaur said.

Harry frowned and crouched down to critically examine the unicorn, incidentally dragging Hermione down since he was still holding her mouth shut. "Huh. Never thought I'd see a gunshot wound on a unicorn. Whoever did the deed shot her from point blank range – there's burns from the muzzle blast."

"And how would ye recognise such a thing?" the centaur growled.

"I kill people for a living." Harry snapped. "I've never seen a unicorn with a bullet wound before and I hope I never have to again, but I've seen what happens when you forcibly insert a lump of metal into a body at supersonic speed far too many times. Any living flesh responds pretty much the same to being hit by a bullet." He straightened up and looked the centaur right in the eye. "I am going to find the worthless fuck that did this, and I am going to make them wish they'd never been fucking born."

"Ye and I be of one mind on this matter, as be my sire." The centaur said with a nod. "Bane of the Clearwater Glade tribe my name is."

"I am Harry Johnson of Kendarat." Harry said, bowing slightly.

"Well met, then." Bane replied. Several shadows detached themselves from the treeline, proving to be more armed centaurs as they lowered their weapons – a few hunting rifles, a number of military rifles, and the odd crossbow or shortbow. "Ye can find a sentinel near the boulder whence the river enters yon loch. If ye have tidings on all this, ye may reach us via yon watcher. If we wish to relay tidings to ye, we have our ways."

Harry nodded. "I'm going to get MacDuff about this." He said, nodding in the direction of the dead unicorn.

The centaur nodded. "Aye, 'twould be wise… Tell me, Harry of Kendarat. What fey wisdom brought ye to this place?"

Harry grimaced. "That's mostly thanks to Hermione here." He said. "She had a rather unpleasant experience late last year, and has been suffering from nightmares since; I've been piggybacking her onto my dreams. This poor beauty was screaming for help in her mind – he must have been chasing her for a couple minutes. Let's just say Hermione's brain acted a bit like an antenna, allowing me to pick up the unicorn's broadcast clear from the castle. Figure the times before he blew 'em away from ambush seeing as how we didn't hear a thing." He looked down at the unicorn, a flicker of pain crossing his face. "Only thing I can do for her now is make the bastard pay."

"Indeed." Bane said. "Thy words mean little to me, but I digress. Yon foul murderer takes the filthy form of a human, but he is a beast of a far fouler shade. His very existence sends dire echoes through the fundament; we seek him whence we may, but thus far our search has been for naught, and our struggle requires our dedication. Each time he has struck, we have found his trail long cold."

Harry nodded again. "I read you." He said. "Figure this bastard's what I've been picking up through the Force since the get-go… I'll see what I can find."

"As ye shall." Bane said, and the centaurs faded back into the woods.

Harry finally took his hand off Hermione's mouth.

"That was mean!" she complained.

"I just saved your life." Harry snapped. "I'm a dragon. That means I've got some standing in their eyes. Whereas you're human. If we'd both been human, we'd both be dead right now. And more to the point you're female. Female centaurs are completely subservient to anyone they associate with, in fact, there probably isn't a single female centaur in the galaxy that isn't a de-facto slave, whereas the males are wild bastards like Bane there, it all stems from the way centaurs were created. Didn't you notice the quality of his shooter? That's an FN FAL battle rifle with a nightsight and an M203 underslung. That kind of quality kit doesn't grow on trees, you know – they get it by selling centaur mares down at Hogsmeade, mostly for the familiar market. I'm stuffed if I know what they want with that kind of gear, but oh well. Point is, far as those guys were concerned, you're female and with me ergo you're my property, especially since I told Bane I'd kill him if he touched you. Centaur mares in the wild aren't allowed to speak without permission, and in fact spend most of their lives gagged. Their idea of a fun time is not being kept on a chain. Those boys don't much like you humans, if you talked in front of a centaur stallion on his turf he'd almost certainly blow you away. He wasn't fucking around when he aimed that rifle at you; didn't you notice he had his finger on the trigger and the selector at cyclic?"

"How do you know it was his turf?"

"Well, since we ran into armed centaurs, it's a safe bet we were on centaur turf." Harry said with a shrug. "They're territorial."

He turned back into a dragon, scooped her up, and launched.

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A few moments later, Harry set down in front of Hagrid's house, transformed back, and pounded on the door; after a few moments, it was opened by a bleary-looking Hagrid.

"Harry?" the big man asked. "Fit are yeh doon up at this time ae nicht?"

"Trouble." Harry snapped. "I had a rather intense psi dream, went to investigate, and found a unicorn, dead with a bullet in her and her throat slashed, out in the Forest."

"Crivvens! Nae agin!" Hagrid yelled, immediately awake and grabbing up his bowcaster. "Tak me there. Dinnae worry, yair nae in trouble."

It didn't take Harry long to lead Hagrid directly to the clearing; Hermione worriedly trailed along behind them as they approached the corpse.

"Here she is." Harry said, squatting down beside the dead unicorn.

"Och, crivvens. This is dreecht, laddie. Terribly dreecht. G'wan back tae th' castle. I'll say ah found her… the puir beast cannea hae bin deed lang."

"There's something I figure should be done first." Harry said, fishing something out of his jacket.

That something was a set of exceptionally long forceps.

"Fit are ye doin'?" Hagrid gasped as Harry slid them into the bullet wound.

"This." Harry said, gingerly withdrawing a beat-up more-or-less cylindrical piece of metal – the bullet. "Very interesting. From the marks, the gun that fired this had five-groove left-hand rifling. That's the sort of marks you get from a Lee-Enfield, but I'm not sure which model – they all had the same sort of rifling. Do you know anyone around here who owns an old rifle from the Second World War?"

"Ah hae a Lee-Enfield ma father brought back frae th' Great War, but Ah kin guarantee ye it wasnae that een. Apart frae that an' Albus, nae."

Harry nodded, transformed, scooped Hermione up, and sprang into the air; Hagrid stared, slack-jawed, after him.

"Well Ah didnae ken the whee laddie's a dragon…"

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The next morning at breakfast, Hermione got another unwanted surprise.

"Check this out!" Alice said, her tone one of high excitement. She flung a newspaper onto the table and started reading.

"Investigations are continuing into the attempted break-in at the London branch of Gringotts on the 7th of August this year. Late last night, Gringotts officials announced that the solitary would-be armed robber escaped empty-handed. Gringotts officials have confirmed that the would-be armed robber was indeed equipped in a manner not seen on Earth for ten years – the combat dress of the Death Eaters terrorist gang. Whether this is indeed a return to action on the part of the notorious terrorist organisation or, in fact, a badly delayed copycat crime remains to be seen. London Metropolitan Auror Division and the HM Government Supernatural Investigation Department are cooperating closely with Bank and Imperial Juraian security groups on the investigation, which SID Chief Inspector Gabriel Van Helsing described yesterday as liable to take some considerable time." Alice dropped the paper again. "What did I tell you, Bruce? Pay up!"

Bruce shrugged and handed her a five dollar bill. "Hey, no getting all smug on me, sheila."

"What did you tell Bruce?" Hermione asked. "I missed that conversation."

Alice smirked.

"That they'd put Inspector Van Helsing on the case."

"The 7th of August?" Harry asked. "Interesting; what time was this break-in?"

"Five in the evening." Bruce said. "Ten minutes past the hour, mate."

"Interesting." Harry repeated. "I was there about three hours before that, and MacDuff was ahead of me in the queue. He said, and I quote, 'Ah've come tae collect the ye-ken-whit frae vault yeh-ken-which fair Albus Dumbledore'. Funny, really – the gobboes acted real courteous to him after they heard that. You don't often see a goblin being polite to anyone who isn't a goblin or a multibillionaire."

"Wait a minute, goblin?" Hermione asked.

Harry nodded. "Yeah, goblin. They're smart little bastards. You play it straight with them, they'll play it straight with you. You mess them around, and wham. Only real difference between the goblins who run Earth's supernatural bank and the ones in Orc space is that the ones here are more likely to sue you than set a troll on you, and that's because they don't have many trolls on Earth. But I'm getting distracted. I've got a sneaking suspicion I know what MacDuff was collecting from the bank; something tells me it's in a certain passage obstructed by a certain Cerberus hound on the third sub-level, if you get my drift. Anyway, we'd better get mobile – it's gravball time."

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Arriving in the stands in the middle of a cluster of her mates, Hermione had a glance around. The gravball field was massive – she estimated it to be about a mile to a side, which made the gigantic monitors above each end zone make sense. She'd been there before, when Gryffindor ran trials, but she'd been distracted for fairly obvious reasons and hadn't really clocked the scale of the place.

Currently, the monitors were displaying a section of one side of the field; the one with the gateways leading to the separate team hangers.

"And here comes the Slytherin team," a voice was saying as Hermione settled herself between S'tarak'hai and Ron; she recognised the voice as belonging to the Weasely twins friend and fellow prankster Lee Jordan. Lee continued on to announce each Slytherin gravballer by name as they entered; he didn't bother concealing his obvious dislike for the lot of them. Scattered applause issued from the Slytherin section, mainly the Death Munchkins; Hermione got the feeling the decent Slytherins had something planned.

"Those aren't school bikes, are they?" Hermione checked as the Slytherin team made the obligatory circuit of the field.

S'tarak'hai gravely shook his head.

"Indeed they are not." He rumbled. "The school used Mentler KG350's; those are Sulare XV1000R Hellhound sportsbikes with more than double the acceleration of a KG350."

"But that's not fair, is it?" Hermione checked.

"Indeed it is not." S'tarak'hai confirmed. "That's gravball for you; performance of bike is a lot more important than actual skill."

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As soon as Woods entered the Gryffindor hanger, his team knew something was wrong.

"We're going to have to deploy our secret weapon early." He declared, coming to a halt in the middle of the room. "You were right, Johnson – I just scoped out the Slytherins, they're packing Sulare XV1000RR's."

"Time to pull out the big guns." Harry said, and the team descended on the line of long, spindly, tarpaulin-covered shapes at the back of the hanger, leaving the Collegium-owned Mentler KG350's sat on their kickstands.

"We still want to know where you got these things, Harry." Fred remarked.

Harry smirked as he contemplated the lineup of bikes.

"Don't ask me any questions and I won't tell you any lies." He said. "Right, let's go stick it to those slimeballs."

The engines came to life with a series of thunderclaps as Team Gryffindor mounted up; by the time they were ready at the gate, everyone in the Collegium knew they were riding anything but Mentler clodhoppers.

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S'tarak'hai frowned as the cracking start-up reports echoed from the Gryffindor hanger.

"Interesting." He said.

There was a flash of red and gold as a machine exited the Gryffindor hanger with the unmistakable form of Oliver Woods aboard and standing up on the footpegs; there was a ripple of voices across the stands as people asked each other what the strange machine the Gryffindor gravball maniac was astride could possibly be.

It was a long, spindly-looking thing with the seat right at the back and tipped over so the rider would be more laying on than sitting on the bike; beneath the seat was a single enormous engine with it's aft end capped by hulking vector plates and afterburner nozzles, and out in front stretched a huge nose fairing, longer than the rest of the bike, that looked vaguely like a pine cone. The rest of Team Gryffindor followed their captain out with Lee Jordan naming each rider, to thunderous applause from the Gryffindor stands and the Slytherin rebels; hearing more than half their own house cheering their arch-rivals put black glowers on the faces of Team Slytherin.

"My oh my. Disarmed Reavers… nicely done, Johnson." S'tarak'hai chuckled.

"Er, what?" Hermione asked.

"Those are Eldar pirate's Reaver attack jetcycles." S'tarak'hai elaborated. "It seems our esteemed leader has acquired and disarmed a number of such. They're normally covered in sharp bits and guns. There are only two models of jetcycle known to outperform a disarmed Reaver, it's weight drops nearly a hundred kilos if you ditch the gun and fire control and take all those sharp bits off. You've gotta hand it to Johnson; the guy's got style."

"How does this work?" Hermione asked.

"Okay. Eleven players to a team. One is the goalie; it's his job to keep the quaffle out of the goal, that's the net at the end of the field under the big monitor. To do his job, he's equipped with a gravity gun – it's a combination of tractor and repulser beam modules. Since the quaffle's typically flying at two or three hundred miles per hour, he can't exactly try to grab it. If the quaffle gets into the goal, that attacking team scores. Two players are the beaters; it's their job to keep the bludgers away from their team-mates and in the way of the other team; like the goalie, they've got gravity guns to do their job. One is the seeker; it's his job to seek out and catch the snitch. The remainder of the team are the two centre-forwards, the left-field, the right-field and the rear field. They're general purpose players; it's their job to get the quaffle into the other team's goal. Play proceeds until the Snitch is caught."

During S'tarak'hai's little lecture, the coin toss for who began in possession had taken place, with Slytherin winning the toss, and with the clap of afterburners lighting up, play proceeded.

"This is insane!" Hermione complained as she saw Fred parry a bludger back at the Slytherin beater who'd launched it his way.

"It's not as dangerous as it looks." S'tarak'hai said. "The riders are protected by conversion fields that damp kinetic impacts. They're also wearing slowfall belts, and the bikes are fitted to eject the rider if the machine's flight path becomes unrecoverable or it's lift and propulsion systems take fatal damage. Lastly, the audience is protected by shields much like those you'd find on a starship."

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It was a good, close-played game; a hell of an intro to gravball for the few members on the audience not familiar with the game. About an hour in, Slytherin was well up; they played rough, and Woods had already needed swapped out after his bike took a bludger to the main lift unit; he was okay, but he'd landed badly and broken his arm.

About five minutes after the substitution, something went wrong with Harry's bike; it stopped flying smoothly. Instead, it was bucking and twisting, like it was trying to throw him off, and he obviously had to struggle to keep the nose up. Just as Hermione was thinking that, she caught a flash of gold out the corner of her eye; glancing round showed the Snitch was hovering about twenty feet above where Lavender and her cronies were sat.

Just as that registered, there came the thunderclap of a jetcycle's afterburner igniting, and Harry's machine came streaking up the field; Draco saw him go and peeled off from the Slytherin formation in hot pursuit.

Hermione clamped her hands over her ears. A moment later, the pair of bikes arrived with a horrible crunch as they hit each other; Harry's machine flashed past and pulled up out of the zoom, while Draco veered off to the left, rolled over, and kicked himself clear of his bike, which was spitting fire and smoke from it's underbelly; it powered into the ground, there was a tremendous crumping detonation as the turbines cooked off, and wreckage rattled against the forcefields around the stands. The blonde Slytherin was spun round with a dazzling flash as something clipped his shoulder; he was clutching at his arm and gritting his teeth as his slowfall belt set him down.

Harry's machine was even further out of control now he was only using one hand to hold onto the bucking bike; as Hermione watched, her heart in her mouth, he let go of the jetbike; the machine nosed over and slammed into the ground with a crack of rending metal, and it's rider dropped neatly to a three-point landing; he sprinted over to the battered jetcycle and killed the engine, then turned and started walking towards the field, holding the Snitch up for everyone to see.

The final score was 200-180 to Gryffindor; the rest of the afternoon was spent celebrating the win.

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At dinner time, Harry took a detour as the CTMA and the Gryffindor gravballers descended in a yelling mob on the hall.

"How bad was it?" He asked, stopping beside Hagrid.

The big man grimaced.

"Dreecht." He said, shaking his head. "The puir beast hadnae a drap o' blood left in 'er. Wha couldae din that? It's terrible."

Harry nodded and proceeded to the CTMA table, where he settled himself between Hermione and Luna.

"… You're not making a fucking canoe outta me!" Ben was just saying as Harry sat down.

Harry waited for the laughter to die down, then said, "Unicorn blood."

"What about it?" S'tarak'hai growled.

"MacDuff tells me that the dead unicorn me and Hermione found had been drained of blood." Harry said. Hermione didn't really think she'd had much to do with finding the dead unicorn, but she didn't say anything.

"Talk about ways to dampen the conversation." Woods remarked.

"There might be something in the library." Luna said. Hermione let out a low frustrated moan.

"Well, I guess I know where we're going after dinner." Harry said, putting his hands on Hermione and Luna's outboard shoulders.

Hermione's face fell. She hadn't entered the library since Flint attacked her. She'd been getting some of the others (in particular, Fred and George) to supply her with books; when she'd asked, they'd immediately cottoned on to why she was asking and agreed without hesitation.

"Um…" she said.

"Don't worry." Harry told her.

She tried not to. It didn't work very well.

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They finished their food (Hermione just picking at hers) then Harry, the two girls and a certain tigress headed for the library.

Hermione felt quite uncomfortable as she paused on the threshold, but she drummed up her courage and stepped through.

Harry grinned at her and lightly squeezed her shoulder; she smiled gamefully at him, and headed for the reading table – the scene of the crime.

"I was sitting right there when…" she said.

Harry nodded.

"I know." He said, his deadly serious expression in place. "You're broadcasting so loudly I'd have to be deaf, blind and dead not to know."

"Ook." Someone remarked, and an orang-utan knuckled out of among the lines of bookshelves. The orange-furred ape arrived at the table, placed a book on it, patted Hermione's head, and knuckled back off into the bookshelves.

"…" Hermione said, wide-eyed.

"That's the Hogwarts Librarian." Luna said, sounding faintly amused. "He's the best librarian in the galaxy. He has no problem getting at the top shelves, and he can arrange books with his feet; I hear he got back from whatever an orang-utan does in the holidays late, which is why he wasn't here when, well, it happened. According to reports he'd have jumped on Flint's back and unscrewed the bastard's head by the ears."

"I am certain Terry Pratchett's a mage." Hermione said, shaking her head.

"Yup, but he's not exactly going to win any most-powerful awards." Harry said. "Rincewind is a sort of satirical author avatar, and Unseen University is based on the collegium on Rokolushu – even most of the staff is satirical portraits of the staff there, though I'm told Munstrum Ridcully and the Bursar are pretty accurate. Oh, and there's about fifty different despots around the major empires it's rumoured Pratchett based the Patrician on, thought the most popular candidate is Lord Gothwrain Daarak. Granny Weatherwax comes from his memories of Hogwarts own Minerva McGonagall, and the Librarian is of course based on that guy over there."

Hermione had a look at the book the Librarian had put on the table.

It was 'Blood of Arcadia: Draconian Genetics in the Humanic Form'. The place she'd left it at when Flint grabbed her was marked with a slip of paper.

"Woah, heavy going." Harry said. "Suza's a great guy, but he writes a bit like that twerp who wrote 'Zen and the art of motorcycle mechanics'… hey, are you okay?"

"No." Hermione said in a small voice. "Let's… let's just get out of here."

"I'll find some books that feel right." Luna said. "I'll meet you at Harry's room later on, okay?"

Hermione nodded shakily; Luna and Katarina proceeded deeper into the library as Hermione scarpered in the company of Harry.

"I think you should have another go sleeping in your room." Harry remarked as they proceeded back towards the Gryffindor hangout.

"I'll just have nightmares again." Hermione said.

"I think you'll be surprised." Harry remarked. "And anyway, I've got some unfinished business that can't go ahead if you're crashing in my room."

"… which means you want me to give it a go." Hermione finished, and heaved a sigh. "I guess I haven't got a lot of choice."

"Don't look at it like that." Harry said, patting her shoulder. "You can always cross the hall if it doesn't work."

"Johnson. Granger." S'tarak'hai remarked, coming ambling up behind them.

"Catboy, great. Do us a favour and walk Granger back to the Gryffindor dorms?" Harry requested.

S'tarak'hai nodded and placed a massive hand on Hermione's shoulder.

"See you in a bit." Harry said, and jogged off as the huge catman gently steered Hermione towards Gryffindor ground.

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Dumbledore looked up from his paperwork as he heard the knocking on his door.

"Enter." He said. This caused the door to open itself; in stepped Harry. "Ah, Harry. What can I do for you?"

"I hear you've got an old wartime rifle." Harry remarked.

"Indeed I do; a Mauser Gewehr 98 I acquired in Rhemes." Dumbledore said.

Harry frowned slightly.

"Do you know anyone who's got an SMLE, or another old British rifle, like a Lee-Enfield Number Four?" He asked.

"Harry, what is this about?"

Harry fished the bullet out of his pocket and ditched it on the desk.

"Take a look at that and tell me what you think." He said.

Dumbledore carefully picked it up and examined it.

"I think someone must have picked up a rather unpleasant injury."

"That someone was a unicorn." Harry said. "She didn't survive the experience. I dug that out of her when I was helping Hagrid deal with the body, and the only weapons in .303 calibre I can think of that use five-groove left-hand rifling are the Lee-Enfield service rifles. Now, I've got an SMLE, but I know for damn sure it hasn't been fired in five years, mostly because I don't have any .303 ammo. I saw several Lee-Enfield rifles in the possession of Bane's people, but I'm damn certain they wouldn't ever centre their sights on a unicorn."

"More than three million of the Short Magazine Lee-Enfield Mark Three were made, Harry." Dumbledore said. "The wartime Number Four rifle numbered around four million. What happened is a tragedy, but I do not see how there is very much we can do about it."

"There's one thing we can do." Harry said, brandishing the bullet. "We can find the worthless fuck that fired this, and use him as a punchbag before we blow his balls off and leave him to bleed."

"First find a hare." Dumbledore said. "I shall see what I can find out."

"If there's any Lee-Enfield in this building, I need to run some ballistic tests with it." Harry said. "If it's rifling matches this, I'm going to introduce the bastard to a gang of very unimpressed centaurs."

"I am surprised that you are on such good terms with the centaurs." Dumbledore remarked.

Harry snorted.

"I'm a dragon." He said. "Centaurs tend to respect anything that could treat them as prey."

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That night, for the first time since Flint attacked her, Hermione slept in the room she shared with Tara and did not have nightmares; instead, her dreams were mainly about a certain dragon. About the only part of the dream she remembered when she woke up was that it had featured Harry in the role of the traditional princess-kidnapping dragon, and Hermione herself in the role of the bewildered princess who wasn't quite sure what this large sarcastic winged lizard with the tired eyes wanted with her.

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After Sunday's magecraft practise, the crew met up in the CTMA room, whereupon Harry and Hermione filled everyone in on the current mess with the unicorn while Luna loudly meditated in the corner.

"There are currently eleven Lee-Enfield rifles in this campus." Harry concluded. "Ten of them are in staff hands; I have the eleventh. I'm working on getting ballistic tests from all ten in an attempt to find a match for the rifling. So far, I've checked rifles belonging to Minerva McGonagall, Hagrid MacDuff, my daughter, and Filius Flitwick; no matches. That leaves rifles belonging to Severus Snape, Argus Filch, Mycroft Quirrel, the Librarian, Rubens Hindenberg, and Calvin Drake. What've you two got?"

"I-, scuse me, Luna and I – checked out what unicorn blood is good for like you asked." Hermione said.

"Well, don't keep us in suspense sheila." Bruce jibed.

"Shut up, Bruce. It's some sort of regeneration agent, a very powerful one. You realise Luna had to bust into the restricted section to find this? Apparently, unicorn blood is used for two things and two things only. To keep the dying alive and to bring back the dead."

"It's rather awful." Luna commented, stopping meditating. "I mean, if you cut a unicorn on purpose, you get this curse, and if you kill one… you're in for some _really_ bad karma, and if you drink a unicorn's blood, you're in for some _even worse_ karma."

"What sort of curse?" Ben asked.

"Well… oh, ask Hermione, I need to stabilise my etheric self. Our research disturbed my wa." Luna resumed loudly going Om, so everyone looked at Hermione instead.

"You know the old Chinese curse about interesting times?" Hermione asked.

Several people nodded.

"That one." She said. "Unicorns are founts for spirits of good luck. Destroy a unicorn, or a ki dragon for that matter, and you've destroyed a fount of good luck. It lands you with an intense karmic debt; everything you do from there on is cursed to failure."

"Well, that's good news in one way." Ben cheerily stated. "Whoever our bad guy is, they're cursed with bad luck. Sounds like fun to me."

"Ben, we don't know who it is. And check this out." Hermione handed him a sheaf of papers; he critically examined her findings, then slowly shook his head, a disgusted look on his face.

"Shit. So a dose of Philosopher's Stone is an effective cure for that curse… In that case, I know what to do."

"Well, how about sharing it?" Harry requested.

Ben snorted.

"Harry mate, it's a piece of piss. Whoever our bad guy is, he's just landed himself with a curse that means he's going to fuck up whatever he does, OK? In which case, he's going to fuck up if he tries to nick the Stone."

"True, but there is of course the possibility that we are dealing with a **group** of people. According to that information Tara dug up, the Stone that is currently stored somewhere in this building weighs approximately two kilograms; that is a _lot_ of Philosopher's Stone, more than a single individual would ever need. And Hagrid told me that unicorn hardly had a drop of blood left in her body. Either someone's stockpiling or we're dealing with a whole bunch of people. And there is of course the possibility that a combat droid or a disposable lackey was used to kill and drain the unicorn."

"Whoever they are, they have got to be pretty desperate to take that kind of risk." Hermione remarked. "I mean, we're not exactly talking aspirin here."

"Indeed." S'tarak'hai growled.

Harry suddenly snapped his fingers, glanced around, frowned and hauled a certain dossier out of his jacket.

"Well, try this one for size." He flipped through the folder to the final page and slapped it. "The current status of Voldemort is best described as a possessor spirit (cf: report 103328641.) Current whereabouts unknown, but assumed to be somewhere in the Tars Sahal'dat system."

"Oh fuuuuuuuuck meeeeeeeeeee." Ben reverentially stated.

"So, what does all that mean?" Ron asked.

"Tell him what you told me the day you joined." Harry told Tara.

"The slightest amount of Philosopher's Stone is enough to reconstitute a possessor spirit's body." Tara said.

"Hold on a fucking second." S'tarak'hai snarled. "If he is currently a possessor spirit, he needs two things to continue his existence; a host, and a constant supply of high-grade life-force. Now what contains more concentrated life-force than anything else? That's right; unicorn blood."

"Exactly what I was thinking." Harry said, his eyes blazing. "Looks like we've got our man… now we just need to find the bastard."

---End Chapter---

Slight update 14/July/07, replacing an erroneous number from where I'd changed the count of Lee-Enfield rifles in the Collegium at the last minute, and correcting a spellchecker artefact – thanks KuroNeko for pointing these out, they slipped past my pre-posting read-through.

AN –

Harry's 'Late last year' remark is not a mistake! He's working from the Kenti calendar, which puts New Year on November 12th. For more information about Top Dog calendar systems, check the Top Dog forum in my signature. I actually got it posted this time; I'd intended to post it last night, but realised I had to make some slightly involved last-minute changes.

Someone asked what Y-fronts are. They're those men's briefs with a Y-shaped seam at the front, as modelled by half the fat middle-aged men in Britain. Any young man caught wearing Y-fronts becomes an object of ridicule.

As the chapter title said, things are starting to come together. Oh, and the pointless bloody death was the unicorn.

Gravball is, simply put, quidditch on jetbikes. Nuff said.

It looks like that new home for the fic might be about to materialise – I've just recently had a very interesting proposal. This is great because I'll hopefully be able to start putting some of the backing material I've got to the use I intended it for. Just the other night I spent two hours drawing up assorted boltguns used by both sides (the Imperium and the Leaguers) during the Wormhole War, just for example, and I've got a lot of character drawings. I'm not sure how well my writing transmits the nine feet of sullen muscle that is S'tarak'hai R'hara'tath, just for example.

I'll keep updating here, but I'll definitely have to remove content, especially over on Biker Half – that particular tale's stalled primarily because of the FF.N stance on song lyrics within the fic. I'm intending the formation of a Xian Pu-centric female-fronted rock band to be a fairly substantial sub-plot, and from day one I've been intending the Sorting Hat to turn out to be a Thin Lizzy fan. I mean, just how appropriate is 'The Boys are Back in Town' to the start of a year at Hogwarts, especially when there's one Ginny Weasely waiting to be sorted with a certain diary belonging to Mr T M Riddle in her back pocket?

I've had a comment about how weird the Kenti names are. This is intentional – I'm building up the society, language and feel of the Thousand Kingdoms as part of a separate project, and I needed the names to have a very distinct 'feel'. They're not as hard to pronounce as they look – they're all more-or-less phonetic. The ' marks are glottal stops; basically a momentary pause in the word, much like what you'd leave between words but somewhat briefer. 'S'tarak'hai' becomes 'Suh tarak hai' (note that all 'ai'-ending Kenti words rhyme with 'Eye', as do the words 'Kenti' and 'Amerai') and 'R'hara'tath' becomes 'Ruh hara tath', just for example.

If you're now wondering about the major difference between the male and female Kenti names I've shown (S'tarak'hai, Tarai, there's a slightly different feel) that's because almost all male Kenti names are Old Kentare place names or scraps of proverbs, while most female Kenti names are the names of the Virtue Spirits from the old Kenti religion.

Thus, S'tarak'hai means 'The Southern Forests', while Tarai means 'Honour'.

Most Kenti surnames are actually place names; for example, the Royal Family (Prathi R'harash'gai, meaning 'People of the River of Angels') are named after the immense Mississippi-like river valley that's their ancestral homeland, and the Thousand Kingdoms capital city is in fact named 'R'harash'gai't'rath', meaning 'Mouth of the River of Angels', as it is centred on where that river enters T'rael'aisha – the Sea of Islands; think of it as a temperate version of the Amazon river delta. R'hara'tath (The River of Thunder) is the old name for what is now known as R'targath'enar – the River of the Storm's Tears. That itself is a plot point from the back story, which you'll get to see when the crew visit Kendarat in the summer at the end of first year.

Note that there are a lot of inconsistencies in what is now referred to as 'Old Kentare' as the Kenti achieved a more-or-less unified global language during their Industrial Revolution when the steam railway locomotive or the sailing ship were the primary means of long-distance travel, leading to some pretty extreme differences in spelling and pronunciation. For example, K'nah'tairag 'The Mountain of Fire' and R'haiy'terait 'The Burning River' both contain local versions of the same word; 'nah'tairag', meaning recurring fires or an active volcano, was spelt in thirty-seven different ways across the breadth of Kendarat; 'haiy'terait' is in fact a version of the same word from a different region.

Descendants of the two versions above survive in the modern Kentare equivalents of the words 'volcano' and 'inferno'; Tairg and Terait respectively, though Tairg can also refer to a person with a volatile temper.

No part of the Kentare language has ever been tonal, but meaning is often derived from context or altered by modifier words; Terait, for example, if said 'Terait'ath' it means a massive fire, if said 'Terait'gai' it means an unexploded bomb and if said 'Terait'shai' it is a popular brand of soft drink with a similar flavour to prune juice.

Most if not all modifier words have their own independent meanings; 'ath' is a warning of danger thought to be descended from an ancient tribal warning cry indicating the presence of a dangerous predator, 'gai' means something that hasn't happened yet but probably will and 'shai' is a subtle innuendo indicating sex, sexiness, or the desire to shag like an overexcited bunny on Viagra; it's the sort of thing normally murmured to one's mates in the pub after noticing a very attractive member of the opposite gender, and will normally be responded to with appreciative murmurs of 'Tal', literally 'Yes' but with a very-much-so connotation.

As for the spar'WURT!trog, that's exactly what it looks like – total and utter gibberish featuring plentiful WURT! blargh and honk. Wurt is of course a favoured Covenant Elite word from the game Halo; the blargh and honk is entirely due to Red Vs Blue.

Moving back to the story proper…

Harry's little speech about Terry Pratchett is simply a matter of me setting it up so that the characters have read and understand references to the Discworld books, yet at the same time I can use things from said series. So many of the places and people from the Discworld books work so well in virtually any setting you care to name; there are very few crossovers that cannot be improved using the Nac Mac Feegle. Note that I'm unsure of what year Munstrum Ridcully made his debut; if it was after 1996, well, this is after all an alternate universe… or at least that's my excuse.

Damnit, that languages rant has turned this into an absolute monster of an Author's Notes.

Well, see you all next time.

Doghead Out.


	20. Chapter 20

**This ain't no self-insert fic.**

**This ain't no slash fic neither.**

**This is Top Dog.**

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There was a long silence after Harry's pronouncement, then everyone was talking at once.

"Hermione. We've got something to do." Harry stated, standing up.

"What?" Hermione blankly asked.

"Come on, Granger." Harry blandly stated, heading for the door.

"What? Where are we going?" Hermione asked.

"There's some other people who need to know this." Harry paused and glanced back. "Ben? Go straight to the old fart and fill him in; he comes under need-to-know. Let's move."

And with that, he was off out the room, a puzzled Hermione at his heels.

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Dumbledore looked up as someone banged on the door to his office; he tapped a concealed switch, and a holographic display lit up over his desk, showing the section of hall at the entryway to his office. To his surprise, it was Ben Chaos stood there; the lanky New Aussie was looking worried.

Dumbledore cancelled the display and mentally tripped the charm that released the door.

"What's up?" he asked. He'd known Ben for a long time – he'd been trying to get the crazy Jedi into Hogwarts since 1932, and although the history books proclaimed Albus Dumbledore as being entirely responsible for the defeat of Grindlewold, he knew for a fact he wouldn't have managed it without Ben's assistance, and that of Dumbledore's brother Aberforth.

"Gudday Albus mate." Ben said, sprawling onto one of the sofas that littered the office. "Hermione, Luna and Tarai figured out what's going on, but not exactly who."

"Care to elaborate?" Dumbledore asked.

"He's back." Ben flatly stated. "It ties in with what I've been feeling – there's a serious disturbance in the Force."

"Tom." Dumbledore said, and sighed. "My greatest failure."

"Yeah. Tom." Ben agreed, and the two old friends lapsed into silence.

"It makes a scary sort of sense, doesn't it?" Dumbledore mused, staring at the ceiling. "Gah, I've made so bloody many mistakes on this Voldemort thing… I must be getting old."

Ben snorted disgustedly.

"That'll be the day, elf-boy." He said. "I still don't get why you and your bro did the whole artificial ageing thing."

"We had our reasons." Dumbledore said. "Aberforth did it to piss off an old rival of his. I did it because of the whole 'wise old man' archetype; it did its job, I do not believe I would have been able to rally any opposition to the Third Reich or Voldemort without that veneer of respectability. Anyway, I plan on 'dieing' and quietly reverting back to my actual age once we're over with all this."

"What about the ears?" Ben asked.

Dumbledore chuckled and flicked his round, perfectly human, ear.

"It's a simple transmogrification." He said. "Politics, Ben. Since the first war with the Kenti, Deladarians have been seen with a certain degree of disdain; racists are so predictable." He sighed and rose to his feet. "Can you run me over the pertinent facts? I need to forwards all this to Gabe."

Ben nodded, likewise standing up.

"Got a copy of the Kenti dossier on Tom?" He asked; Dumbledore nodded.

"Indeed; right here."

"Okay, here's what the girls came up with…

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Hermione became hesitant as she realised where Harry was leading her; the place where the river entered the loch.

"Harry, you're not going to grab my face again, are you?" she asked.

Harry shook his head.

"Just keep quiet; only speak if the centaur asks you a question, and if that happens be brief."

Hermione nodded, still uneasy, and they rounded the corner of the massive boulder that stood, perched on the edge of the little cliff that led down to the water, right where the river met the loch.

"Greetings, wyrm." A voice said, and a centaur stepped out from among the trees. "Have ye tidings?"

Harry nodded. "Indeed. I believe I've identified the killer."

"Aye?" the centaur asked. "Speak then."

"It's name is Tom Marvolo Riddle." Harry said. "Commonly known as…"

"Lord Voldemort; aye. His wordplay is familiar to us." The centaur said. "Thy tidings are truly grave, friend; I shall travel at once to Clearwater Glade and bear thy tidings to our kin. Fare thee well."

"See you around." Harry said; the centaur vanished into the woods, and Hermione relaxed with a sigh.

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**Disclaimer: Take my love**

**Take my land**

**Take me where I cannot stand**

**I don't care**

**I'm still free**

**You can't take the sky from me…**

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**Top Dog: Enter the Fnords**

**Book 1: Harry Johnson and the Headmaster's Socks.**

**A Doghead13 / United Galaxies fanfic**

**Written & produced by Calum J 'Doghead13' Wallace**

**Brought to you by Hairy Scottish Git Productions, GMBH**

**This is not a drill.**

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**Chapter 20: Into the Winter**

**(In which we meet a very important centaur, and some amount of time passes)**

After Harry and Hermione got back from the edge of the Forest, they had dinner, then hung around with the usual suspects in the Gryffindor hangout for the rest of the evening trading jokes before getting a not-too-late night seeing as how there was class the next morning. Hermione's dreams that night were weird, nebulous, and rapidly faded when she woke up the next morning.

She made her way down to breakfast with Tara, and settled herself at the table in her usual position between Harry and S'tarak'hai.

"-if you don't change your attitude you never will!" Ben was just saying, causing much laughter.

"Meow." Harry remarked, making a casual scratching-claws gesture. Lavender sniggered a bit, as did the Patil twins and Carla; the gesture was apparently some sort of in-joke.

"Anyway," Harry said, "On the fucking-with-Snape front, I've got a special little something or two lined up as a welcome back present. Let's see how much of a mess we can make out of the new alchemy lecture hall."

"You might wanna lob this into a Death Munchkin cauldron." Fred said, handing him a small bag.

"Oh? What's in there?" Harry asked.

"Well, we might just have acquired a duplicate of greasball's lesson plan." George smugly remarked. "You guys are supposed to be making a really stinky boil removal potion, and that's powdered mandrake leaves wrapped in Californian pixie silk."

"If you add that to the potion once it's finished, it'll coagulate for about twenty minutes then start spewing pus-like yellow stuff in massive quantities." Fred added.

"Oh great, don't tell me dickhead is using _that_ recipe?" Harry groaned. "He's fucking cuckoo, it's an absolute _bastard_ to get right; that's sixth-year material. Hey Tara, I think you'd better partner with Neville Longbottom, otherwise there's going to be a dissolved cauldron and desk in the offing, and probably a cloud of carcinogenic smoke."

Tara nodded grimly but said nothing.

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That morning, they had the first sign of the change in classes following the October break; instead of 'Introductory Magecraft' they had something calling itself 'Transmogrification', which was the art of transforming things into other things; as a demonstration, McGonagall turned her desk into a live pig, which a certain tigress very promptly attempted to eat.

Transmogrification proved to be a bit frustrating; one wrong move and your attempt would snap back, but if you managed to get it transformed all the way it'd settle there. Much to her pleasure, Hermione was one of the first students to succeed, earning some points from an approving McGonagall. Harry, of course, transmogrified the straight-backed chair he was sitting in into a Lazy-Boy recliner and went to sleep, much to McGonagall's visibly barely-controlled amusement. Luna likewise screwed around, transmogrifying herself into an elf, but then, what do you expect?

Lunch was it's usual slightly chaotic affair, and afterwards it was off to confront the Snape.

Hermione hesitated as they reached the doors of the new alchemy lecture hall, but a gentle squeeze of her shoulder from Harry buoyed her courage, and she entered.

The room was just the same as when Dumbledore had been running classes, with one important difference; there was no elderly man dozing behind the lecturer's desk while waiting for the class. Everyone seated themselves, and Snape soon came sweeping in.

He proceeded to resolutely ignore everyone from houses Gryffindor, Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff, letting them get on with it and carefully guiding the Slytherins; he didn't even look at anyone who wasn't a Slytherin. The only time Snape so much as batted an eyelid was when Tara suddenly said something angry-sounding in Kentare, stood up, and started teaching houses Gryffindor, Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff, whereupon Snape looked faintly startled for a moment.

The net result was that there were basically two separate classes going on in the same room at the same time, and for the first time in his life Neville Longbottom managed to successfully brew a potion, thanks mainly to the amount of attention he got from Tara.

Harry spent the entire class trying to get a reaction out of Snape. He started off by loudly questioning the man's sanity, went on to firing paper clips with an elastic band, started casually lobbing unidentified things into varied Death Munchkin cauldrons while nobody was looking, then lost interest and started mixing up some sort of pungent red concoction that most definitely wasn't the one on the board; this he bottled.

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"Well, that was an improvement." Bruce said, amusedly watching the drunk-with-happiness Neville who was swaying towards the Gryffindor hangout.

"He completely ignored us!" Lavender complained.

Bruce shrugged. "That's exactly what I was talking about."

"… true."

"So, what was that you were cooking up?" Ron asked Harry.

Harry smirked.

"Oh, I had a whole bunch of fusion chilli paste needing turned into a proper curry base." He said.

"Erk!" Ron remarked.

"Fusion chillies?" Hermione asked. "Do I want to know?"

"Hottest peppers in the galaxy." Harry said. "If a human ate one small fusion chilli they'd lose their sense of taste, permanently. And that's if it didn't kill the stupid twit."

"Er." Hermione said, reminding herself that Harry wasn't exactly human.

"Wanna see a neat trick?" Harry asked, unearthing a cigarette. He took one of the bottles out of his jacket, took the cap off (releasing that thick pungent odour) and dipped the cigarette in the chilli sauce; when he took the cigarette out the bottle, it was lit.

"Great stuff." Harry said, taking a drag from the cigarette. "There's enough capsaicin in this bottle to kill fifty people, and that isn't even the half of it – this stuff makes Earth's hottest chillies look like chewing gum."

"Er." Hermione repeated. She liked spicy food, but that was insane.

At that moment, there were a string of tremendous explosions from the direction of the alchemy classroom.

"Oops." Harry said, not sounding the least bit like he meant it.

"What have you gone and done this time?" Tara asked.

"Oh, I might just had adjusted a few Death Munchkin concoctions so they became time-delay bombs." Harry said with a shrug.

"I saw Snape leave right after we left." Dean Tomas said.

"Pity." Ron remarked.

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Dinner was a quiet affair, and afterwards the gang got together in their usual corner of the Gryffindor hangout, whereupon Tara and Harry started telling tall tales; Tara's brag about escaping from a Hutt slave pit with only the aid of her wits, a non-stick frying pan and a roll of duct tape was definitely the most fun, partly because they all knew she was making the whole thing up, while with Harry's weird stories you never could be sure whether or not he'd actually done this stuff.

Ben was just joining the fun when a very pale and shaken Hufflepuff girl (Hannah Abbot) skidded to a halt beside the CTMA corner.

"Uh, I've got a m-m-message f-for H-Harry J-j-Johnson." She said. She had to be even more shaken up than she looked, if the stammer was anything to go by; she was usually a pretty centred person.

"That's me" Harry said. "Let's hear it."

Hannah nodded a little frenetically. "Th-there's a m-m-massive c-c-centaur in th-the c-courtyard and h-he says he w-w-wants t-to t-talk to y-you."

"Interesting. Let's roll out, gang." Harry said, standing up. "Thanks Hannah."

"N-no p-problem." Hannah stammered. The CTMA went barging out the Gryffindor hangout in a disorganised mob.

"Oh m-my g-GOD!" Hannah suddenly squawked. "HARRY KNOWS MY NAME!" She went as red as a Weasely's hair and bolted.

"Great, another one." Percy muttered, adding 'Abbot, Hannah' to his mental check list of girls with crushes on the most problematic Gryffindor.

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The centaur surveyed the crew that had come rampaging out into the courtyard, and raised a vaguely amused eyebrow.

"Greetings." He said as Harry came to a halt in front of him. "I am Madoragan, leader of the Clearwater Glade tribe; I have a desire to speak with thee in privacy, Harry of Kendarat."

"I suggest the Blink Dog's cargo bay." S'tarak'hai growled.

"Works for me." Harry said with a nod. "Can't get much more private than the guts of a privately-owned starship. You down with that, Bruce?"

"She's right, no worries mate."

"Lead on, then." Madoragan said.

The whole gang headed for the Blink Dog; Bruce opened the cargo ramp with a remote control that looked like a cross between a TV remote and a 1950's science fiction hairdryer raygun, and they proceeded onboard, whereupon Bruce closed the ramp by the same medium.

Madoragan swept his eyes round the cargo bay.

"Intriguing." He said. "Often have I wondered about the ships that sail among the stars. But to business." He turned to face Harry. "What proof have thee that yon murdering beast is indeed the foul shade of Voldemort?"

"Circumstantial, but it's pretty compelling." Harry said. "Firstly, there is a two-kilo Philosopher's Stone in the basement of the castle."

"A rare and precious gem indeed." Madoragan said.

"Secondly, someone is killing unicorns and draining their blood." Harry continued. "And thirdly, Department 48 knows for a fact that Old Tom Mouldyshorts is currently what's known as a possessor spirit. Now, a possessor spirit needs a constant supply of life-force. What contains more life-force than anything else in known space? Unicorn blood. And what can a Philosopher's Stone do for a possessor spirit? Reconstitute it's body. Now, I know for a fact the Stone was stored at Gringotts bank in London until just before the Death Eater attack there at the beginning of August, and I know for damn certain there's something nasty going on here at Hogwarts. Why else would the old fart be shelling out seventy thousand a day to have me here?"

"A convincing argument." Madoragan said, nodding grimly. "I concur; though there is no direct proof, perhaps a thing might be seen from it's shadow." He frowned, obviously deep in thought. "Whatfor the weapon with which the crime was done?"

"I recovered the bullet." Harry said. "It's got classic Lee-Enfield rifling marks. Now, there are eleven Lee-Enfield rifles I know of in the school. One of them's mine, and I know for damn certain it hasn't been fired in five years. As far as the rest go, I've checked all of them without finding a match."

"So I guess that means there's a twelfth Lee-Enfield somewhere around here." Hermione said. Madoragan glared at her, but kept his peace.

Harry snorted.

"Kid, all we know for sure is this; that bullet was not fired through any of the eleven gun barrels I checked out in the last two days." He said. "Now, that bullet was fired from a heavily worn barrel, and half the Lee-Enfields I checked have new or near-new barrels. Setsuna's rifle, for example, has been fired precisely five times, including the test shot I fired. It's entirely possible that someone's swapped gun barrels on us – that's an old trick for getting around ballistic tests."

"So I guess we have to search the staff quarters." Hermione said. Madoragan muttered something about upstart females not knowing their place.

Harry nodded.

"Problem is, I don't think they'll be very cooperative; students doing police-style forensic investigation isn't exactly run-of-the-mill." He told her. "Besides, there's a good chance that barrel no longer exists; if you're going to use a gun to murder someone, you can't make your own unjacketed explosive bullets and you know you won't have time to police up the expended slugs, what you do is this. You get hold of a well-worn barrel, use that to do the deed, then swap back to your normal barrel and deep-six the one that matches the murder slugs into your local friendly blast furnace. It can't exactly be used to convict you if it's been melted down and turned into sporks. I've done that a few times; it's the quickest and easiest way to get shot of the evidence, I'd be on the New Ironforge death row if it wasn't for that trick. Of course, it's entirely possible there's Lee-Enfields in the school I don't know about; a lot of people in this place have enough mental defence training that I can't hear their thoughts. That said, those are the Lee-Enfields that Dumbledore knows about, and he seems pretty well-informed."

"A wise and noble man he is." Madoragan said, nodding.

"Can't agree with you there, friend." Harry said, grimacing. "He's screwed me around too much."

"That man does naught without reason." Madoragan said. "Mayhap sometimes he lacks in knowledge to make the best choices, but he has oft shown his talent as a leader and a warrior. Is it not said that mistakes are an inevitable part of being sentient?"

"Problem is separating the cock-ups from the intentional crap." Harry said with another grimace. "I don't trust the guy; I've got my reasons but it's not shit I've got any desire to talk about, so enough on that subject. I know you guys have quite a few Lee-Enfield rifles, but I'm discounting those from my search for reasons that should be fairly obvious. For now, I'm going to assume we're dealing with a swapped barrel; unfortunately that leaves us back at square one."

"We have an idea." Said Fred.

George withdrew a certain Map from his jacket and laid it on the bonnet of the old car he'd been leaning against.

"What might that be?" Madoragan asked.

"I solemnly swear I am up to no good." George said. A smile flickered across Madoragan's face as the map's introductory message appeared.

"This is the Marauder's Map." Fred said. "What it does is, it displays a real-time updating map of the entire Collegium, with the current positions of everyone on the site marked."

"I know at the moment it only shows a small part, but you can expand it to display the whole place at one go." George cut in.

"Problem is it's twelve feet across in that mode." Fred added.

"It is familiar to me." Madoragan said with a nod. "What might be thy plan?"

"What we think is this." George said. "We have someone watch this 24-7, and watch for anyone going into the Forest."

"When we see someone going into the forest, we radio you guys," Fred took over, nodding to Madoragan. "And you give the bastard a third eye."

"Brainwave, boys." Harry said with a smirk. "What do you say, Madoragan?"

"Thy proposal hath merit." The centaur said.

"Alright." Harry said with a nod. "Let's do this thing. But first, do you mind me asking a few questions about our bad guy?"

"Ask away." Madoragan said with a nod.

"Have any of your people got a clear look at him?"

"Nay; we have never actually laid eyes upon him." Madoragan said; Harry looked momentarily disappointed.

"Figures; this guy must be pretty talented." He said. "What about footprints?"

"Aye, he wears boots much like thine own." Madoragan said with a nod.

"Doesn't tell us much, does it? Have you found any cartridge cases?"

"The Forest is littered with such things." The centaur said, shrugging. "To tell his from those of my people would be an enormous endeavour."

"Shit." Harry muttered. "You found anything else at all of this guy?"

"Nay." Madoragan said with a shake of his head.

"Square one again… shit, we don't even know what that bastard is." Harry muttered. "Hey Fred, George, does that thing show up undead or robots?"

"It shows undead alright, it shows the ghosts." Fred said.

"But it doesn't show Dorothy or the guard robots." George said.

"Dorothy? Dorothy who?" Harry asked.

"Dorothy Wayneright, she's a free android." George explained.

"She's a Ravenclaw third year." Fred added.

"And she's hot." George concluded.

Harry nodded and looked at Madoragan.

"Don't rely on info from us." He said. "For all we know this son-of-a-bitch could be using robots to do the dirty; I'd advise keeping a real tight eye on the unicorns. What have you got in the way of anti-armour weaponry? Much in the way of armour-piercing rounds, or maybe shoulder-launched missiles, like say Stingers or something?"

"Very little." Madoragan said. "Such weaponry is outside our means."

"I'll see if I can dig up some heavy equipment." S'tarak'hai rumbled. "I should be able to requisition some pattern-2 A-DRK grav rifles over the winter break."

"Pattern 2?" Fred asked, cocking his head.

"They have furniture small enough for the hands of a human." S'tarak'hai told him, swinging his grav rifle off his shoulder; he removed the magazine and placed it beside the Marauder's Map. "As you see, the standard A-DRK grav rifle has a pistol grip and stock proportioned for a large Kenti landwarrior, making them vastly too large for many species, centaurs included."

"Indeed." Madoragan said, stretching his hand over the A-DRK's pistol grip; he couldn't get his fingers all the way round, despite having big hands.

"Pattern 2 was constructed for the use of the Thousand Kingdoms warriors of smaller species, or of course Kenti women." S'tarak'hai stated. "It is now the primary export variant of the A-DRK modular assault weapon system." He picked his rifle up and clapped the magazine back in; it slotted in underneath the stock, much like an FN P90 turned upside down.

"I must away." Madoragan said. "Thou hast given me much to think upon; perhaps we shalt meet once more in the coming months."

"It's been good speaking to you." Harry said, extending a hand; centaur and weredragon shook as Bruce lowered the cargo ramp, then Madoragan cantered away back towards the Forest.

"Bloody centaurs remind me of the Nalfers." Tara grumbled, watching Madoragan head off into the gathering dusk.

"There are certain passing similarities." Harry said.

"Like what?" Hermione asked.

Harry snorted.

"The Nalfers refuse to recognise that anything female can possibly be sentient, that's what Tara's referring to." He said. "They also think of anyone who isn't New Atlantean as a degenerate filth only worthy of continued existence as a slave; think of them as the galaxy's ultimate bigots. They're even worse than the pureblood-supremacists. Like to know the really funny thing? Nalfers have _shit_ genes. Average lifespan of sixty-five years and one in five will develop terminal cancer by the time they're twenty. They've got the highest mutation rate in known space, and the highest rate of genetic disorders. Unfortunately, they've also got a helluva powerful military and a pretty goddamn impressive intelligence network; they're dangerous fuckers all right. Put it this way; they are the only nationality all Council of Magi collegia refuse to educate. They are after all the enemy. Hell, those bastards invented all three Unforgivables."

"Unforgivables?" Hermione asked.

"The three most illegal of all illegal spells." Harry elaborated. "First off there's the Imperius curse. It's one of the simplest, stealthiest, and most effective mind control spells ever created. You can break it with raw will or a Force trance, but you need to be _shit-hot_. I know three people who can definitely throw that thing off –Darth Vader, Catboy, and Yours Truly. It's powerful enough to use on a god, and it's also pretty much impossible to detect. Second off there's the Cruciatus curse. It's a torture spell, and a real bitch too. It makes every nerve in your body feed back every single possible pain signal at the same time, I've taken that one a couple times and it's about the least fun of all the not-fun experiences I've had. Only one way of reliably blocking that thing – pain editors. Doesn't stop it, but it stops the pain signals reaching your brain. Last but definitely not least, there's the Avrea Kedavera – the Soul-Eater Curse. On the surface it's a pretty standard death spell, but in actual fact it's anything but. It's a so-called soul-eating spell. What happens when you hit someone with that thing is it rips out their soul and aura, minces it, and stuffs it into the caster. Oh, and it drains the victim's life force as well – leaves them stone dead on the spot, and they're so thoroughly dead they can't even be reincarnated. Hell, their soul doesn't exist any more. It can punch through half an inch of battle armour pretty much instantaneously, and about the only know way of blocking it is a lightsabre or my fucking forehead. Adeptus Astartes power armour will do the trick, but that's about the lightest armour that's up for the job and it is _not_ light. You're okay if you're wearing a walkertank."

"Harry, how come you've got access to Department 48 information?" Tara asked, deciding to change the subject.

"Well, you know how the Nalfers kidnapped Princess Zarie R'harash'gai and Princess Lahari LeSaga a couple years back?" Harry checked. Tara nodded, growling a bit, so he continued. "Well, it just so happens that I helped Cloud out on that op. That's how I met catboy and his team, and his father. Since then, I've done half a dozen jobs for Department 48."

"What _is_ Department 48?" Hermione asked.

"Royal Security." Harry told her. "They're the people who make sure nothing threatens the Kenti royal family, and they are _extremely_ good at their job, but like any such group they need a little outside assistance from time to time. That's where I come in. I'm afraid I can't tell you any more, it'd jeopardise my chances of getting more jobs from them and they pay _really bloody well_."

The gang spent the next few hours assembling a security camera system that would watch the Marauder's Map at all times; this they built in a spare cabin on B-Deck onboard the Blink Dog; cabin B2, so right up at the ship's nose on the port side of the spine. The jury-rigged system utilised a connection to the AI intruder alert systems onboard Harry's road train, and would alert the weredragon any time anyone who wasn't Hagrid went into the Forest.

They then headed back to and their beds since it was getting unpleasantly late.

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They were checking the day's recordings of movements around the collegium a few days later when Fred noticed something weird.

"This is weird." He remarked.

"What?" Harry asked.

"Quirrel isn't showing up as 'Mycroft Quirrel'." George said. "He's showing up as 'Lector Grosse'.

"That's an Atlantean name." Harry said, peering at the screen the twins were consulting. "You know, I find myself wondering why you two hadn't commented on my identity, or that of a certain Kenti of our acquaintance."

George snorted.

"Harry, we're not stupid." He said.

"And you changing your identity makes perfect sense." Fred agreed.

"As for said Kenti…" George continued,

"Well, let's just say we know when things are bigger than us." They chorused.

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Time passed quickly. 'Basic Rituals' was replaced by 'Charms', which seemed to be a catch-all category. Madam Hooch had the students learning ballistic flight, which Harry jokingly called a Superman impression. Autumn turned to winter; the first snows of the year arrived, cladding the ground in white and frosting the roofs and battlements of Hogwarts. The CTMA organised snowball ambushes for the Death Munchkins, and got in enjoyable snowball fights with the Hufflepuffs. December rolled around, and with it the end of B term.

Two mornings before they'd be getting on the train for the Christmas break, Fleggitt Marwillip Nelkroddly was lounging in the room he shared with S'tarak'hai R'hara'tath, and 'reading' a porno, when someone knocked at the door.

"Come in." S'tarak'hai growled.

Fleggitt looked up from his skin mag and developed a bemused look as soon as he saw who'd come to pay he and S'tarak'hai a visit. Tara didn't seem to have much time for the big landwarrior, despite being so obviously gone on a certain very large catman that it was almost painful to watch.

However, there she was, standing on the threshold.

"S'tarak'hai, there's something we need to talk about." She stated.

S'tarak'hai sat back down, obviously very surprised.

"What is it?"

Tara then began to talk, at length, in Kentare. Fleggitt tuned it out, but noticed again when S'tarak'hai started gabbling into what looked to be a military commset, which he then handed to Tara, who said something terse and very pointed into it before handing it back. The two Kenti then nodded at each other, and Tara departed.

"I don't want to know." Fleggitt stated.

"Private stuff between me and Tarai." S'tarak'hai said, sounding apologetic.

"It's none of my business anyway, what?" Fleggitt replied, cheerfully returning to his porn. Not asking questions is a good idea when your room-mate is in the Special Forces.

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Ten minutes later in the Gryffindor Hangout, Bruce Walker had a certain very large Kenti plunk himself down opposite.

"Captain." S'tarak'hai said. "I have a request for you."

Bruce scooted round in his seat.

"Aw, c'mon S'tarak'hai mate, we've known each other long enough you oughtta know you can call me Bruce."

S'tarak'hai rolled his eyes. "Look, Bruce. This is a serious matter. The life of a blockade runner crew is fraught with danger, and seeing Tara come to harm would destroy me; you know what I'm talking about. I wish to sign on to your crew. I am as you know an elite landwarrior; I am a competent shot with any ranged weapon, a hunter of the seventh degree in two schools of unarmed combat, a capable pilot of any vehicle, a competent sensor operator and a fourth-circle polymancer."

Bruce was by this time looking extremely surprised.

"S'tarak'hai mate, we'd be glad to have you, but aren't you a serving landwarrior? Don't you have army-type stuff needing done?"

"I am indeed an active member of Kendarat's armed forces, but as it happens I am as you know currently detailed to train in magecraft at this Collegium; until my magical education is complete I am on leave during collegium breaks, and there are certainly worse things to do with my time than helping out my friends. Plus, earning a little cash on the side would be nice."

Bruce slowly nodded. "I'll have to talk to Tara and Alice, but I don't foresee any problems."

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Over the remaining two days, it transpired that Harry, the Chaoses, and S'tarak'hai would be going to New Australia with the Blink Dog for what Bruce called 'Smashdown Week', which was apparently a major New Aussie festival. The rest of the CTMA were heading home for the break, and they turned out to wave goodbye as the Blink Dog dusted off two hours before the train would be leaving. Harry's truck had already headed south in the whee small hours, taking the Marauder's Map with it; Carla would be staying with Hagrid over the break, and she had equipment that allowed her to monitor the Map and, if needed, alert the centaurs.

"Reactor stable at 75 output. Everything's green." Alice said. She clicked the main throttle to tickover, and there was a low whine from up the back as the six hulking turbines spooled up, then a crump and rumble as the building charge ignited into plasma.

"Turbines idling at 250,000RPM." She reported. "Number 2's spooling a bit, but nothing drastic."

"Navigation nominal; all shields are well into the green zone, fire control is locked in and ready, all drives idling smoothly. We're ready to go." Tara said.

"Helmsman's ship." Bruce stated. "Take us up, sis."

"Right." Alice said, and pulled back on the coaxial stick. There was a distant roar and a slight shudder through the ship's frame as the four lift turbines in the wing roots revved up and spat plasma, and then they were airborne, balanced on the pillars of thrust emanating from the Dog's broad belly.

Alice smiled and smoothly ran the main turbine throttle forwards and clicked the afterburner switch; the ship seemed to gather herself for an instant, the turbine rev counters leaping towards the top of the dials, and then she lurched violently forwards, her lift turbines dropping back to idle as her wings bit into the air; a moment later her air speed hit the critical point, and a sonic boom rolled across the glens far below, scaring the clappers out of a whole load of sheep. Viewed from within the rat-rod's cockpit, the sky fast-forwarded from blue through purple to black and studded with points of light.

"That's us; we're clear." Alice said.

"Nav, lay in a course for Wormgate." Bruce commanded.

"Course laid in; ready on your mark." Tara told him.

"Take her away, sis – all ahead full."

"Look out New Australia, here we come, ready or not." said Alice. She let go of the helm, switched the autopilot on, placed her hand on the throttle, idled it, clicked it sideways to the second slider, and slid it to the tenth mark; the turbine rev counters jumped upwards again, and a low rumble lifted through the deckplates as the warp drive powered up. The stars ahead abruptly blueshifted then went through a kaleidoscope of light as their infra-red emissions shifted up the visible spectrum while the stars behind redshifted, did the kaleidoscope thing from their ultraviolet emissions, and vanished as the ship punched through the light barrier and left their light far behind.

A flickering streak of Chekhov rainbow flared between Earth and the moon, punching in an arrow-straight line towards Aldebaran, and the Blink Dog had left the solar system.

**End Chapter.**

AN –

Capsaicin (sp?) is the active ingredient of chilli peppers, and it happens to function because it is a neurotoxin! Three grains of capsaicin is enough to be dangerous, and that's hotter than the hottest thing you have ever tasted in your frickin' life.

About the FN P90 –it's got a funky mag that's difficult to describe. Not as strange as an H&K G11, but still weird. It slots in from the top back of the receiver and clicks down; when inserted it lies along the top of the receiver and fore-end. You can probably find a images of how the mag goes into a P90 by running a Google search on 'FN P90', but I don't know.

Considering that there's spells like the Dragon Slave knocking around in the Top Dog universe, the Av Kav needs to be a bit more extreme to be quite so illegal. When you've got attack spells rated in megatons, who cares about a piddling little death spell?

In the English language, starships use nautical terminology for the main part, even if they're laid out like aircraft. They don't have a cockpit; they have a wheelhouse or (on a larger vessel) bridge. They have an engine room, a hold, and a helm. The interior is divided into varied vacuum-tight compartments, sealed with dogged hatches and separated by bulkheads. The front is the bows; the rear is the stern. Port is red is left; starboard is green is right. The roof is 'abovedecks', the bellypan is 'the keel' and the lowermost deck is often referred to as 'the bilges'. The person who drives is the helmsman or skipper. You don't dust off, you put out (as in putting out to sea) and when you're under superluminal drive, it's called 'under steam'. Running your FTL drive up to the power band is 'all ahead full' or 'full steam ahead' and past the redline is 'all ahead to flank'. You don't stop, you heave to. 'Dirtside' is interchangeable with 'On shore' and 'In port'. The only real exceptions are where naval terminology doesn't have the right words, at which stage aeronautic terms come into it – such as 'Coaxial stick', borrowed from helicopter terminology. All this is because the first English-speaking people to deal with starships were time-lost Australian trawlermen; they simply transferred the terms they were familiar with when they became New Australian asteroid miners. As for terms like 'Underworks' and 'Sideworks', they are translations of Kenti terminology; they're also known as 'Bilges' and 'Gunnels' respectively. All this is because I thought it was more interesting that using generic aircraft terminology.

About blue and red shifting; it's an effect of velocity on light hitting the object in motion. As you approach a light source, the wavelength is effectively compressed since you're meeting it faster; as you go away the wavelength expands. It's the Doppler Effect in action. In other words, things that are closing on you go blue, and things that are going away go red. Stationary objects behind you are invisible at FTL velocities as their light will never reach you, while light coming from in front will probably act like gamma radiation when it hits you. Good thing duranium and glassteel are both opaque to short-wave radiation!

Real-world Scotland is one of the world's UFO report capitals. In the Top Dog universe, all of that is down to the presence of the galaxy's finest college of magic.


	21. Chapter 21

**This ain't no self-insert fic.**

**This ain't no slash fic neither.**

**This is Top Dog.**

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Hermione woke up slowly the morning after she'd got home. Laying there in the bed she'd had since she was five, in that place halfway between sleep and wakefulness, life at the Collegium seemed like some kind of mirage or fever dream; looking out across her room through sleep-fogged eyes, she couldn't believe it was real. Then little details seemed to jump out at her; the slim Heckler and Koch handgun in the holster hanging on her bedside chair, the copy of 'Sleepless in Nar Shadda' she'd borrowed from Tara sat on the nightstand, the Luggage loitering with intent in the corner of the room, and the pressure of a certain bracelet around her wrist.

Either the dream was real, or she was still trapped in it.

She raised her arm and contemplated the heavy silver bracelet that would let Harry know if she was in danger. It was elaborate, but looked oddly industrial. The myriad details on it's shell looked like they had some arcane purpose; from what she knew it was probably a mix of technomancy and runecraft. There was definitely a line of blunt-shaped runes almost like Japanese writing; they didn't look like the type Hermione had seen before; she idly wondered if they were magical and what they meant.

She sat up and rubbed the sleep dust out of her eyes, then slowly climbed out of bed, thinking about everything that had happened since her birthday.

As she did so, she was completely unaware of the three different people who were watching her. At the top of the just-visible clock tower, a small woman dressed in a black leather catsuit was watching through the telescopic sight atop an Accuracy International L96 rifle, and two different people were observing via two very different scrying methods.

It was probably a good thing for Hermione's peace of mind that she didn't know about them.

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**Disclaimer: I disclaim. If TSR are right that means it went pif.**

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**Top Dog: Enter the Fnords**

**Book 1: Harry Johnson and the Headmaster's Socks.**

**A Doghead13 / United Galaxies fanfic**

**Written & produced by Calum J 'Doghead13' Wallace**

**Brought to you by Hairy Scottish Git Productions, GMBH**

**This is not a drill.**

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**Chapter 21: Another day, another mess.**

**(In which our heroine has an unsettling realisation or two)**

Halfway through breakfast, Hermione heard the sound of an engine coming up the street; she looked up with a start when she realised what was creating that growl. The growl grew to a roar as the bike closed down the street, then died off to that very familiar snarling tickover.

By that time, she was out the front door and running up the path, closely followed by her father, who'd been wanting a closer look at this particular bike for a while.

Harry was just getting off the Fenrir. He looked quite smug as he killed the engine.

"Harry! I thought you were going to New Australia!"

"Hey, kid. Got a little something for you." Harry said, fishing something out of his jacket; it looked to be a section of rolled-up tarpaulin.

"What's that?" Hermione asked.

"It's one end of a subspace door." He told her.

"Uh, what are they when they're at home?"

"Ah yes, you missed that conversation." Harry said with a casual shrug. "Well, if you like we can get this thing set up and I'll show you."

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Twenty minutes later, they were in Hermione's bedroom and had the thing unrolled. It looked like a cloth mock-up of a door.

"Subspace doors are based on two things; the temporal-spatial engineering techniques used in TARDIS-type time machines, and high-end wormhole control technology." Harry said. "Of course, that means they're so advanced you and I might as well be cavemen trying to understand hyperdrive physics. Luckily, we don't need to know how they work to use the bloody things. First off, you always use blutack or double-sided tape to attach a subspace door to the wall; if you nail it or use drawing pins you'll probably rip a hole in the space-time continuum, or at least that's what Washuu said."

"What does this thing do?" Hermione asked, fishing the blutack out of her bureau and handing it to him.

"When you open this end, you can walk through and come out the other end, irrespective of how far away it is." Harry said, sticking the subspace door to the wall. He stuck the last corner down, and a ripple travelled across the door, turning it from cloth into plywood with a large brass doorhandle.

Harry put his hand on the doorhandle, stopped, and turned round.

"I want you to understand something." He said. "The other side of this door, there is only one law – the gun. Fortunately, this door leads to Ben's dojo, and his dad's got the biggest gun in the galaxy. You're okay at Ben's place, but New Tasmania is not a safe fucking town; don't whatever you do wander off, the next thing anyone knows I'd have to declare war on yet a fucking nother Hutt or some-such. But anyway," and he flung the subspace door wide open, "Welcome to New Australia."

The door led onto a large Asian-looking living room, replete with low tables and complete absence of chairs. Large quantities of high-tech equipment was set around the room, most of it computer gear and built into the walls. One entire wall was dedicated to racks of close combat weaponry; mainly swords, but a wide variety of polearms and several lightsabre hilts too. Another wall was completely covered in guns, the third was a whacking great Japanese-style sliding door/window, and the fourth was entirely full of very normal hardboard interior doors identical to the one they were just stepping through; the last door at the end was another sliding one.

The main thing that grabbed Hermione's attention was the light. It slanted in at a sharp angle; the sun was low on the horizon and stained purple; dozens of crescent moons studded the lavender-hued sky.

"My God." Hermione said, stepping through.

"By the way, in the distance of that step you travelled several million light years." Harry remarked. "Although it's connected by a wormhole from the Aldebaraan system, New Australia's actually in what you call the M51 Whirlpool galaxy."

Hermione walked silently to the door and looked out. They were on a hill surrounded by a vast, run-down city; shanty towns stretched to the horizon. To Hermione's left, there was a high-rise city centre that punched into the stratosphere, silhouetted against the sun, the buildings so impossibly tall that they seemed to spear the sky itself. Vapour trails scribed white lines above; the ground was criss-crossed by canals, the air thick with flying cars, and a smell like a chip shop drifted on the breeze. In the far distance to Hermione's right, it was snowing in the gathering dusk. The grass on the lawn looked weird; it was thick yellowy stuff, and as Hermione's booted foot descended on it, it cracked and splintered like broken crystal. Odd purplish mushrooms and tangled, sickly-looking vines formed the undergrowth at the perimeter of the garden, interspersed by fungi the size of trees and spear-leafed yellow-green shrubs; flabby, doleful-looking orange fish swam slowly in the pond, and a frog the size of an Alsatian squatted at the far side of the garden, it's bright orange throat expanding to the size of a beachball with each breath it took. Iridescent beetles the size of dinner plates buzzed from plant to plant on humming gossamer wings; as Hermione watched, a long yellow tongue shot out the frog's mouth, ensnared a giant beetle, and reeled it in; there was a noise like a drinks can being fed through a mangle as the frog ate the beetle with obvious satisfaction.

"What the Hell's going on? Oh holy **shit**!!!" Jeff Granger had just stepped through the subspace door.

"Gudday Harry, gudday Hermione, gudday mate, you're our Hermione's old man, right mate?" Ben said, emerging from a random door.

"Jeff Granger, and you are?" Jeff asked, not taking his eyes off the panorama.

"Benjamin J Chaos." Ben said. "This is me pad, welcome to New Oz mate. Harry mate, I'm gonna head down the town and meet up with the others at the Queen Vic, wanna come down a few?"

"Sure." Harry said, and turned to look at Hermione. "Let's roll."

"Hermione's too young to be drinking." Jeff automatically said.

"This is New Australia, there's no such thing as licensing laws here." Harry told him. "Let's move."

"Now hold on one goddamned second!" Jeff barked. "I don't know what you think you're doing with my daughter, but-"

"DAD!"

"- you try anything I'll break your fucking jaw!"

"Like to know what happened to the last guy who threatened me?" Harry asked. There was a noise like a whipcrack, and Jeff was looking down the yawning .86-inch bore of Harry's Overlord.

"They never found any particular part of him." Harry flatly stated. "I recognise you want to protect your daughter. Well, don't even fucking think I'll take that bullshit because you're a friend's father; try anything and I'll make you so dead they'll have to clean you off with a fucking mop. Got it?"

"Harry!" Hermione complained, outraged.

"Granger?" Harry snarled. "Do yourself a big favour and shut the fuck up."

Hermione's mouth closed with a snap.

"Everyone needs to calm down." Ben said in a calm patient voice; Harry glared at him, but Jeff immediately calmed down.

"Bloody Jedi." Harry muttered, heading for Ben's garage; he had Hermione hard on his heels. Ben grimaced and followed them, glancing back at Jeff.

"Coming, mate?"

"Yeah." Jeff said, and the four rapidly arrived at the garage, the door of which Ben hauled open, revealing a rather memorable car.

The car was a massive black fifties-looking lowrider, all curved steel and acres of gleaming chrome, wider and longer than a normal car by a good margin, and something about it niggled at Hermione's memory. It was a double-cab pickup with bench seats front and back; titanic brightly chromed exhaust pipes ran along the sides below the doors, connected to the engine by huge external downpipes that sprouted from beneath the vast curving bonnet, and an enormous air intake protruded from the centre of said bonnet, surmounting a supercharger of ludicrous proportions. The radiator grille looked a bit like a snarling mouth full of chrome teeth, and the loadbed sported towering tailfins, replete with bullet-shaped tail lights. It looked like a Cadillac or something, and Jeff said so.

"Nah mate, that's an 1856 NTPD-spec Holden Brigand ute." Ben said, unlocking the monster and making Hermione realise where it was familiar from; it was a different variant of the same vehicle as the Walker's truck.

She noted that it sported a Rob Zombie on the dashboard just like the one in Harry's road train as they got in.

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After an enjoyable few hours with the Blink Dog's crew at the Queen Victoria Bar on the fringes of the New Tasmania starport, during which Hermione was unusually quiet, the four headed back up to Ben's. Harry made his excuses and departed, explaining that he had to 'nip over to Chez Weasely'; Ben took off to go practise, and Hermione wandered down to Ben's firing range while her father distracted himself by disassembling a bike.

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Ron Weasely was bored. That was why he was slouching around in the garden waiting for something to happen.

And happen it did with the roar of a very distinctive engine as the Fenrir came pounding up the driveway; the huge machine skidded to a halt between the Weasely's battered old Ford Anglia and the twins half-done-up taxi, and Harry swung off with a cigarette hanging from the corner of his cocky smirk.

"Harry!" Ron said, coming running over.

"Gudday mate." Harry said in an outrageously overdone Aussie accent. "Fred and George about?"

"Yeah, they're in the shed working on their car's gearbox." Ron said. "OI! FRED! GEORGE!"

"What?" the twins chorused, popping out of the shed. They then saw who had just turned up, and chorused, "Harry!"

"Hey fellas, got a little present for you." Harry said. "Fraid there's only one so you're going to have to share it between you; catch." He whipped a rolled-up subspace door out of the Fenrir's saddlebag and lobbed it at the twins; George neatly caught it out the air.

"Oh holy shit, is this what it looks like?" Ron boggled.

Harry shrugged.

"Well, not if it looks like a piece of rolled-up tarp. If on the other hand it looks like a rolled-up subspace door, that would be because it is a rolled-up subspace door. Me and Ben got to talking, and Ben decided it'd be a good idea if we had access to all the CTMA's homes. I hooked Granger up earlier today, and of course the Chaoses and the Blink Dog are already on the network."

"Who's this?" someone asked, coming ambling out the house; that someone was a pretty teenage girl with that distinctive blazing red Weasely hair.

"Harry, this is Ginny, she's me little sister." Ron said. "Gin, this is-"

"My name varies, often without warning." Harry butted in. "Some call me Stan, some call me that flaming lunatic, but to most I am know as the one and most definitely only Harry Johnson. Gudday."

"Uh, hi." Ginny said.

"Come on in and meet the family." Fred said.

"Everyone's home for Crimbo." George added.

"Even Charlie made it." they chorused.

They trooped inside. The rest of Clan Weasely was mostly in the living room; Percy had his nose in a book on the sofa, a middle-aged guy whom Harry recognised as Arthur Weasely (the file photo was an excellent likeness) was doing something arcane on a computer, and two handsome young men were discussing something highly technical-sounding involving runes at the table.

"Hey everyone, Harry's here!" Ron declared.

Everyone looked up. The long-haired young man in the heavy rock T-shirt who'd been chatting with his short-haired shirt-clad brother on the sofa shot bolt upright with a yell.

"Morley!"

"Hey Bill, long time no see." Harry said.

"What the Hell are _you_ doing here?" Bill complained.

"The name's Harry Johnson these days." Harry casually told him, causing Bill to go rather pale. "What, never come across someone who uses multiple identities before? But anyway, you did the job, you picked up the paycheck, where's the big problem?"

"The big problem is I don't know if I can trust the sort of person who'd _want_ that stuff we dug up." Bill told him.

"Yeah, and if you couldn't you'd have died in a hole in the ground in Liberia." Harry told him, starting to sound a touch annoyed.

"You are one fucked-up puppy, Morley."

"You think I didn't know that?" Harry asked. "Hey, do me a favour and call me Johnson, I ditched the Morley identity shortly after that job."

"So what's your real name?" Bill growled.

"That's a secret." Harry informed him. "Oi you three, where are we gonna set this thing up?"

"End of the hall upstairs sounds good." Fred said. Harry nodded, hauled a packet of blutack out of his pocket, tossed it up and caught it behind his shoulder, and went trooping off up the stairs with Ron.

"I take it you know Harry." Fred remarked.

Bill nodded warily.

"Not very well, but well enough." He said.

"So, how'd you meet him?" Fred asked.

"I was approached through work a couple years back by this character calling himself 'Slade Morley'." Bill said. "He hired me as a curse breaker for a major job – he said that because I'm named Weasely I was the only curse breaker on the Gringotts staff he could trust to keep what was going on quiet. I can't talk about what the job was, but let's just say that the payoff made the usual holocrons and so on look like so much junk; if it wasn't so bloody dangerous it'd be the biggest archaeological find of, well, just about _ever_. I don't trust that guy, Fred. He is up to something, and when he cuts loose the entire galaxy is going to feel it."

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Harry and Ron set the door up, then Harry took off to go do his daily gun maintenance; he claimed that one of his Calicos had 'made a funny noise' the last time he fired it, so he was lounging around in his truck's living room surrounded by gun components and carefully examining each when Jeff found him.

"There you are."

"Here I am."

"I want a word with you, Johnson." Jeff said.

Harry looked up from the cotter pin he was critically examining.

"What?" he snapped.

"Hermione hasn't said a bloody word since you told her to shut up."

"Are you serious?" Harry asked, cocking his head. Jeff nodded, and Harry set his gun parts down and stood up.

"Very, very, interesting." He said. He didn't look especially happy.

"What the Hell is interesting?" Jeff growled.

"Simply the fact that our favourite girl genius hasn't said anything at all since I told her to shut up." Harry told him, heading for the subspace door to the Granger household. "I've seen this before. It didn't end well."

He found Hermione in her room, hunched up in a corner of her sofa and reading a book.

"Hello, Hermione." He said.

Hermione looked up from her book, but didn't say anything; she looked decidedly put out.

"I didn't mean you to clam up that thoroughly." Harry said. "I'm touched and all, but you might as well resume talking."

Hermione glared at him. "What the Hell did you do to me? I couldn't talk!"

"Calm down and think about it, Granger." Harry blandly remarked. "When was the last time you didn't do something I told you to do?"

"… quite a while ago." Hermione admitted.

Harry nodded.

"Thus my point." He agreed. "Looks to me like you've got a compulsion going on in your head. Think about it, Granger. Would you be able to not do anything I told you?"

Hermione thought about that. "I… well, I'm not sure." She said.

"Care to experiment?" Harry asked.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, I tell you to do something simple, and you try not to do it." Harry told her.

Hermione slowly nodded. "Okay, I'm game."

"Jump up and down a couple times, Granger." Harry said in the dead level voice he usually only used on the firing range.

Much to her embarrassment, Hermione immediately popped to her feet and bounced a couple of times.

"Ye gods." She said, sprawling back to the sofa.

"See what I mean?" Harry asked.

Hermione nodded. "How strong do you think this thing is?"

"I don't know and I don't intend to find out it's limitations. I do not want to find out if, speaking strictly in the metaphorical sense of course, you would obey me if I were to, and I say this purely as an example, tell you to drop dead."

Hermione winced.

"I don't think I want to know either." She said.

Harry nodded. "Considering that you basically went mute back there, I think it's pretty powerful… certainly vastly more powerful than I'd intended."

"Intended?" Hermione snapped. "What do you mean, intended?"

"Did I say that out loud?" Harry muttered. "Oh well. Remember that thing with my dirtbag relatives and a newspaper?"

Hermione slowly nodded, glaring at him.

"When I scanned you, I planter a mild obedience compulsion in your mind." Harry said.

"What the Hell did you do that for you prick?" Hermione snapped.

"Three years ago my future self met me in New Sydney." Harry told her. "You were with him. He showed you to me and told me, 'This is the most powerful weapon you could possibly possess'. I'd intended Class Seven mind control, that's similar to the way a child is likely to obey a parent, or a student obey a martial arts master. Maybe a touch stronger. The big question is where I went wrong. I don't know for sure, but I've got my theories."

"Well, how about sharing them then?" Hermione asked, marking her place and putting her book down.

Harry nodded again and sat down on the sofa beside her.

"You had a sheltered upbringing." He said. "When you came to the Collegium it was a severe shock to your system; you were already less than stable when that son-of-a-bitch attacked you, and that tipped you over the edge. Your world had lost it's foundations, so you found new foundations in the form of the most dangerous person in the place, because that person was and is most likely to be able to protect you from any further attacks. I didn't cotton on to exactly what was going on in your head, I didn't go below the conscious level, and my little mind-trick connected with that."

Hermione thought about that for a long moment, then nodded as she realised Harry's theory made an unnerving sort of sense.

"I sort of adopted you as a dad, didn't I?" she asked.

"Either that or a master." Harry told her with a shrug. "I'm not really sure, and I don't think it really matters that much anyway."

Hermione digested that, then gave him a funny look.

"Which sort of master are you talking about?" she asked. "The martial arts master type of master, or the master-and-slave type of master?"

"I've got every right to kidnap maidens!" Harry declared in an immensely pompous voice that made him sound startlingly like Cornelius Fudge. "I am after all a dragon, I'll have you know! I have to have a captive young lady or two; my lair would be quite incomplete without them! You can't have dragons going around not kidnapping damsels; it simply wouldn't be proper! I ask you, young people these days, no respect for tradition!"

Hermione stuck her tongue out at him, then giggled. Harry grinned and draped an arm around her.

"Seriously speaking, I think it might be both." He said. "Gunmastry is a martial art, and I am a master of the Talosian school; the terminology we use is a bit different from traditional martial arts terminology, but then, gunmastry is a bit different from ju-jitsu or kenjutsu or whatever. In that way, we have a master-student relationship. On the personal level… it gets a little less clear-cut, don't you think?"

They lapsed into silence.

Hermione looked at him. He was obviously worried about how she'd react.

"I'm cool with it if you are." She said. "That book I was reading is one of the companion volumes for 'Blood of Arcadia: Draconian Genetics in the Humanic Form'. It's about dragon psychology; I know the basics of the hoarding urge."

"So, what have you gathered about the way my head's wired?" Harry asked, putting an arm around her.

"I know you don't feel totally secure unless you've got all your most valuable things around you, especially when you're going to sleep." Hermione said. "I also know that your friends and confidents of not-dragon species count as a part of your most valuable things somewhere inside your head."

"You're aware that the galaxy regards Arcadian-cross weredragons such as myself as dragons able to turn into humanics regardless of our birth form?" Harry checked, and Hermione nodded, so he continued. "Good. What do you know about the exceptionally weird dragons who get hot about humanics?"

"Not much." Hermione admitted.

"Okay. Those key draconian instincts you were talking about all come from one very specific thing; control." Harry told her. "A dragon has a clean bill of health into perpetuity; germs that can survive in temperatures as hot as molten lead are extremely unusual, and we can shrug off enough damage to splash a frigate. Weredragons such as myself are even more powerful than a pure Arcadian dragon, thanks to our Amerai genes; even if you don't take my cybernetics into account I can shrug off a headshot from a .44 Magnum in a matter of seconds. Taking my cybernetic armour into account, I can completely disregard .50 Browning machine gun bullets, and a shoulder-launched missile would have to hit me in the head to put me down for good; and in dragon form I'm tough enough to make a Challenger tank look like a Skoda. The 9mm Luger rounds fired by your sidearm cannot penetrate my skin. I am over three centuries old, and I'm considered a young child; my great-great-grandmother is two and a half billion years old, and that's without the help of time travel. So, I think you'll understand me when I say that my future is a hell of a long time. The more I can control my environment, the better my chances for long-term survival; that is the primary goal of my subconscious mind. The need for control of my environment is strongest when applied to my mates."

"That doesn't include me." Hermione pointed out.

Harry nodded. "Agreed, but you **are** a _potential_ mate, especially as far as my emotions and thus my Sith self are concerned."

"Potential… Harry, what does that mean?"

"That means I fancy you something fucking rotten." Harry blandly remarked. "I want to carry you off to my lair in the mountains, tie you up, and screw you until you're so overwhelmed with pleasure you can't so much as think. It's partially my breeding instincts talking; you're the most powerful girl I've ever met. It's partially my testosterone talking; you're hot. And it's partially my emotions talking; you're intelligent, attractive and you take notice of me, ergo you're precisely my type."

Hermione considered that.

"So… what do we do now?" she asked.

Harry stared at the ceiling.

"I don't know, but I do know one thing." He said. "It takes at least Class One mind-control to cause someone to go mute on command, and at Class Three the mind-control victim is no longer legally accountable for their own actions." He sighed. "You know, I really hate me."

"But other people like you, Harry." Hermione said. "Harry, why are you so… so… so…"

"Nasty?" Harry asked.

"No… so _down_?" Hermione asked. "I've seen you smirk a lot of times, and I've seen you do the evil grin, but I've never seen you really _smile_."

"My world is not a good place to be." Harry said. "I have to be heavily armed and well-informed, or I'll be dead. To a certain extent I enjoy it; adrenaline is fairly addictive. After that point… when you look into the abyss, the abyss looks into you; let he who would battle monsters beware, lest he becomes that which he has sworn to oppose."

"How about S'tarak'hai and Ben?" Hermione asked. Harry gave her a quizzical look, so she continued "Do they think you're all that bad? And how about your daughter? Professor Meiuu strikes me as being a really well-informed person; I don't think she lets herself miss _anything_ and I think she's been doing that ever since she found out about how you grew up. Does she think you're a monster? Do Ben and S'tarak'hai think you're a monster? What about S'tarak'hai's dad? He's really important, isn't he? Tell me, Harry. Do all those people think you're a monster?"

"No, and I'm fucked if I know why not."

"It's because you are _not_ a monster, Harry Johnson." Hermione said. "There is a big difference between scars and monster-ness. When it comes down to it, you're actually a really caring guy, and I think you deserve a bit of happiness. I know S'tarak'hai and Ben agree with me; they're your best friends, aren't they?"

Harry gave her a faintly exasperated look.

"You're _not_ going to manage to talk me into _liking_ _myself_." He said.

Hermione contemplated him for a few moments, then shrugged.

"All I'm trying to get across to you is that there are people who know you and they like and respect you." She said. "I know you, and I know you never do anything without a _very_ good reason."

"You hardly know a thing about me." Harry snapped.

"I don't know much about your _past_, but I know _you_." Hermione told him. "I know you're brave, and I know you're honourable, and I know you're deadly, and I know you're as cunning as an old fox, and I know you've been in situations I'm glad I can't properly imagine, and I know you're a dragon to the bone – you'll do anything, _absolutely anything_, to protect your hoard, and that includes your friends, that includes _me_, and I… and I think I like it… I know I _need_ it… I'm gonna go say hello to the Weaselys, I'll see you later… just… just think about it, okay?"

Harry nodded.

"I'll be over at Ben's if you need me." He said, and the two headed off, splitting courses in Ben's living room; Harry went and sat on the deck while Hermione headed through the subspace door to the Weasely house.

"So, got things figured out?" Ben asked from behind Hermione, making her jump. She turned round; the lanky New Australian was leaning against the doorframe and contemplating her with a very serious look on his face.

"I think so." Hermione said. "I'm not sure what I make of the implications, but I think I've figured it all out now."

"Good." Ben pushed himself away from the wall and fell in step with her as she continued down the hall. "Look, there's something you oughtta know. This isn't the first time this happened, and last time was the only time I know of that Harry actually let himself fall in love. Believe me, it didn't end well."

"What happened?" Hermione asked.

"Well, this was back when Harry was in his thirties." Ben said. "Harry met this chick while he was on an operation for some mates of his daughter's, I won't go into details, it's a big secret. Anyway, after the op the two of 'em started going steady. It was the happiest I've ever seen Harry. Then little things started going wrong; things went weird, for a while there she was more Harry's servant than his girlfriend, anyway something really wasn't right and we nearly didn't find out in time."

"Find out what?" Hermione asked.

"That Carla Jutland is actually a Tzeentch cultist called Nehelania." Ben told her. "She bloody nearly killed Harry; three of our mates didn't make it, and Michelle's mum was put in a coma. We still don't know where the bitch went."

"Wait a minute, Carla?" Hermione checked. "Any relation?"

Ben nodded. "Carla's a slightly modified clone of Nehelania. Look, don't ever mention the names 'Carla Jutland' or 'Nehelania' to Harry, last person who did was in intensive for two years and still can't stand up."

Hermione winced. "He really knows how to explode, doesn't he?"

"Yeah." Ben said.

The two of them stepped through the door at the bottom of the stairs, and found the whole of Clan Weasely hanging out in the living room.

"Hermione! Ben!" the twins and Ron chorused. "How goes it?"

"Aw, same shit different day mate." Ben said.

"Gaaaah." Hermione said with a grimace.

"You two haven't been introduced yet, have you?" Fred said.

"Nope Fred mate, we sure haven't." Ben agreed.

"Okay, you know us and Ron and Percy." The twins said, talking in perfect unison. "Well, this is our little sister Ginny, this is our big brother Bill, this is our other big brother Charlie, this is our mum, and this is our dad."

"Gudday, cobblers." Ben said. "I'm Benjamin J Chaos."

"Hi, I'm Hermione Granger." Hermione added.

"You're part of _**the**_ Chaos family, right?" Charlie asked Ben.

"Dead on mate, me dad's Grand Warlord Chaos." Ben said, nodding wildly.

"Blimey." Charlie muttered.

Bill blinked, noticing something.

"That's weird." He said. "Hermione, isn't it? How come you've got a bracelet engraved in High Draconic?"

"You what?" Hermione blankly asked.

Bill pointed at the silver bracelet she had locked round her wrist.

"Those are Arcadian Draconic pictograms." He said. "More specifically, they're the high tongue pictograms, like what would be used in courtly missives."

"Cool… can you translate them?"

"Sure." Bill said, copied off the bracelet to his notepad, and started scribbling a translation. "That's the great thing about the dragon's language – each word only has one possible meaning, especially since High Draconic was designed for giving orders. It's the clearest language in the galaxy… oh boy, where'd you get that bracelet?"

"Harry gave me it, why's that?" Hermione asked.

Bill froze for a moment, went very pale, pulled the top sheet off the notepad, passed it to her with hands that were now shaking, and hurriedly walked away.

Written on the sheet were the pictograms, in order, with translations underneath:

'_This human is property of Lord Storm-claw the Magnificent, Cousin to High Prince Suza of the Far Eyes. To interfere with her is to invite the immediate visitation of Death.'_

For the first time, Hermione noticed how manacle-like the bracelet was. She was pretty sure she wouldn't be able to get the thing off without the ring that was currently on Harry's finger, and there wasn't enough space to slide a matchstick between her wrist and the bracelet.

"I don't be-fucking-leive it." She muttered, suddenly extremely annoyed. She rose to her feet and went in search of a certain Mr Johnson, completely unaware of the way the air was crackling with energy around her; the Weasely twins (who had been plotting mayhem in the hall) took one look at the infuriated sorceress who was bearing down on them, and more specifically the little bolts of lightning shooting across her skin and the small objects levitating as she passed, and very hastily got themselves out of the way.

As he'd said, Harry was at Ben's, lounging around on the front deck; she marched up to him, handed over the translation, and said, "Explain. Now."

Harry made a disgusted noise.

"Of course I bloody well tagged you." He growled.

"What, am I some sort of pet?" Hermione spat. "Is that all I am to you?"

"Stop getting worked up before you've got all the information." Harry snarled, swinging to his feet and getting right in her face. "That bracelet will send me a heads-up if you're attacked, you knew that anyway. Well, it can also protect you in another way – that tag. You're right that 'Storm-claw the Magnificent' is me. Prince Suza bestowed me and Setsuna with what he called 'proper dragon names' after he discovered I'm his cousin. I have a reputation, Hermione. I am high up the big list of persons in which there is absolutely zero percentage in fucking with. Are you even aware what a really powerful magi is capable of doing? I know a woman by the name of Lina Inverse. I've met her in passing – she's not exactly a prepossessing sight until you discover that little redhead is capable of casting the most powerful attack spell ever known; the Giga Slave, at full power. At full power, the Giga Slave is capable of overloading a star _with a single shot_." Harry grabbed her shoulders and looked her straight in the eyes, giving her a little shake. "Hermione, you've got to realise, you out-power Lina Inverse – a woman nicknamed 'The Enemy of All who Live' and 'The Walking Unnatural Disaster', hell, the Norfs call her 'She Who Must Be Avoided' – and you out-power her _by at least a factor of ten_. That's why I've _got_ to keep you _out_ of the _wrong hands_. That's what that bracelet does – any Arcer or pureblood who sees that sees a big bold 'back off' signal, because as Stormclaw I've got a fucking _serious_ reputation and that reputation says there is absolutely _nothing_ to be gained in fucking with me and mine."

"I guess they'd hit me with that Soul-Eater Curse thingy if they got me." Hermione said in a wobbly voice.

"No. They'd do something _far_ worse than that." Harry said, his voice even grimmer; he sat back down on the edge of the deck and sprawled over on his back, staring at the purple-hued sky. "You're too powerful for a soul-eater; if someone hit you with that, their aura would completely overload and they'd go off like a really fucking big bomb. What they'd do is this. It's surprisingly easy to erase memories. It's just as easy to replace them. With the right equipment, you can program a sentient being like they're a fucking microwave. _That_ is what would happen to you if the wrong people got you; they'd turn you into a mindless combination of weapon and brood mare. Sorcery is usually a recessive gene, chances are they'd flip it to dominant like they did to my mother then breed you with every pureblood male in sight, chuck the sons down a well, and breed the daughters back for a few generations to 'get rid of the taint' before marrying their brats to your great-granddaughters. _That_ is why I'm paranoid." He paused, then chuckled and sat back down. "That's why I've got a small team of… _friends_ keeping an eye on things. We _have_ to keep you in the right hands, Hermione. _Thousand Kingdoms_ hands. _**My**_ hands. Anything else could sound the death knell for civilisation in this galaxy. I'm sorry, I really am; I hate giving good people bad news."

Hermione considered him for a long moment, looked from him to the bracelet and back a few times, then sighed slightly.

"Harry, what's really going on? I'm part of your big plan, aren't I?" she asked, sitting down beside him.

Harry nodded.

"There's a number of what we call Omega-rated weapons." He said. "They're the top ten most powerful weapons known to exist. In at number one is the twat who's responsible for this mess existing. Second place goes to the Hardak mage-tech particle accelerator known as McColl's Fury; that thing'll take out, and I really do mean _take out_, an entire star system in a single shot. At place three we have the Imperial Atlantean Empress's badge of office; the Silver Empyrean Crystal. Close behind the Crystal in place number four is Thor's enchanted warhammer, Mjolnir. Place number five used to belong to the Silence Glaive, but that slipped to place six the day you were born. Nobody's ever been able to accurately measure your aura's power output, but it's similar to a medium-sized star. Once you're fully trained, you'll be the fifth most powerful weapon in known space; I fully intend that weapon to be on the right side."

"Your side?" Hermione checked.

Harry nodded.

"Exactly. I had two choices; I could kill you or I could control you." He said. "My employer left the final decision up to me."

"Who are you working for? Or is that one of those questions you can't answer?"

"I'm working for several people." Harry said. "The old fart contracted me to kill Old Mouldy. As for the other people I'm working for, keeping their identities quiet is worth a lot of money to me."

"Why don't you trust me?" Hermione asked.

"I trust you just fine, Hermione." Harry said, draping an arm across her shoulders. "But there are a lot of people out there who can read minds, and you're not exactly a rated occlumencer. The old fart habitually scans anyone who looks him in the eye, and Snape spends most of his 'lectures' riffling through people's private business. You know when they give you that piercing look? That's them reading you. They don't just go with what you're projecting – they go in _deep_, even into stuff you don't consciously remember."

"Shouldn't that be illegal?" Hermione asked.

"Oh, it is most places." Harry said. "But to men like me and Severus Snape and Albus Dumbledore, the law is something that happens to other people. Dumbledore's in tight with varied shady groups like the Supernatural Investigation Department and MI8. For some reason the old man needs Snape, but if you factor in the fact a certain grease-haired bastard's on the Thousand Kingdoms top hundred most wanted list I'm not bloody surprised Snape's got no respect for privacy. As for me, in the circles I frequent there are two types of people – the well-informed and the dead."

"So… what _can_ you tell me? I really want to know more in case I can help." Hermione said.

"Because you don't want to be just a weapon; right." Harry said with a nod. "I'm afraid I can't tell you much; first off there isn't a whole lot of solid intel so far, it's mostly just moderately educated guesswork like our pet theory about Tommy the Boy. And second off, what I do have is for the main part things I do not want to get into Snape's greasy little mitts."

Hermione considered that, and glanced out across the city.

"Couldn't we just, I dunno, buy something like cybernetics or something that'd stop that creep reading my mind?" she asked.

Harry nodded.

"Good idea." He said. "I can think of two options; a cybernetic psi-barrier or a skill upload."

"What are they when they're at home?"

"A psi-barrier is an implant with a surface area of three square millimetres; it gets implanted in the part of your brain where conscious thoughts and psionics powers go on. Trouble is, it involves having a hole drilled through your forehead and the operation can make you lose memories; it's quite a young technology." Harry lectured. "A skill upload on the other hand is much simpler and safer, but it does depend on one thing."

"What's that one thing?" Hermione asked.

Harry chuckled dryly.

"Skill uploading is a form of mind programming." He said. "Absolutely anything can be included in the upload, including things like 'kill switch' words."

"What's that mean?"

Harry snorted. "What it sounds like; most Imperial servitors, for example, have a specific word which if you say it to them causes them to stop breathing. Another dirty little trick is the command voice; command voice programming makes the victim completely unable to disobey the command voice. For example, Carla's programmed to unhesitantly obey my voice. So yeah, both the short-cuts have their problems."

"I wouldn't mind getting that skill upload." Hermione said. "I don't like the idea of the headmaster or Snape messing around in my head."

"I suppose it depends on how much you trust me." Harry remarked.

Hermione nodded.

"I trust you with my life." She said. "You know that, Harry."

"But do you trust me with your mind?" Harry asked.

Hermione thought about that, even as she nodded.

"Well, yeah." she said. "It might just be that compulsion thingy talking, but yeah, I trust you that far."

Harry nodded, and the two of them lapsed into silence; they sat and watched the contrails for a while.

"Come with me." Harry suddenly commanded, getting to his feet; Hermione got up and followed him.

"What's the program?" she tried.

Harry grunted and kept walking, rapidly arriving at Ben's Holden Brigand. Here he unearthed the car keys, unlocked the massive lowrider, and climbed in; Hermione trotted round the other side and climbed into the front passenger's seat.

"Ben knows you're borrowing his car, right?"

Harry nodded, and turned the key; the engine roared into life, and Harry aimed the front into town and stood on the gas.

"So, where are we going?" Hermione asked.

"To talk to a contact of mine." Harry said. "I don't know if you noticed, but your aura is on the edge of running out of your control – when you got pissed off earlier your control started to slip, that's why you were surrounded by an aura of crackling sparks and things around you were starting to levitate."

"They were?" Hermione boggled.

Harry nodded. "Yup. And it'll only get worse. That's why we're going to go get you a stabiliser, and a powerful one."

"Uh, what happens if I don't get one?" Hermione asked.

"Boom." Harry said. "Bye-bye Hermione's head, and everything within about a hundred kilometres. It's all to do with the way magic flows. Normally you get a high-frequency sine wave, something around sixty or seventy terahertz, with a lot of feedback effects, roughness, power surges – it's more like the way water moves down a river with a rough bottom than water flowing down a pipe. Problem is, the rougher the flow of energy, the less controllable it is. Normally it isn't too dangerous, but you're already dealing with energy into the megatons per second, and as you get more and more training you'll be able to draw more and more on the infinite well of energy nature gifted you with."

"Infinite? Harry, just how powerful am I?" Hermione asked.

"Practically infinite." Harry said. "Once you're fully trained, you'll definitely out-power Earth's sun by about a factor of twenty. Right now you can access nearly as much power as Albus Dumbledore, and you haven't even passed the test to first circle. By the time you do, you'll easily have the available power he has, but with a tenth of the ability to keep it under control. If we can get the flow smooth enough, you won't have problems. In the old days, non-dragon sorcerers even a hundredth of your power would have had to be killed to avoid disaster – then, about three hundred and seventeen thousand years ago, an Ordo Mystica researcher noticed the effect silver has on flows of thaumatic energy. She got permission to experiment, was handed a condemned sorcerer, and was told to take it well outsystem before turning the stasis field off. The experiment was a resounding success, and the sorcerer got fast-tracked to Inquisitorial training – these day's he's an Imperial legend, and there's simple runes to do the job of precious metal. It's something to do with the shape of an Ist rune. You have two of the most powerful stabiliser implants I've ever seen, they're second only to mine and the old fart's, but you can pack a lot more power into a necklace than an implant, especially if it's silver – you get a double whammy that way."

"So you're taking me to town to buy me jewellery?" Hermione asked. "A girl could come to like that, you know."

Harry chuckled, and they lapsed into silence for the rest of the drive.

The shop they were heading to was jammed in a corner between a brothel and a tattoo parlour; it consisted of one of those doors wedged between two other establishments. All were composed of welded together and chopped about cargo containers, as did most of the 'buildings' on that street; entering the shop involved going through the door and up a flight of stairs.

At the top was the shop itself, sculpted from the interiors of four or five cargo containers; Hermione wasn't sure about the count. Big bay windows composed of old car windscreens formed one end of the room, admitting the purple-hued light of New Australia's sun; three quarters of the room were cut off from the public by an armoured-looking counter, and a pair of scantily-clad women with machine guns were loitering around, both wearing an unnervingly blank expression.

There were bloodstains on the floor.

The shelves were full of arcane-looking bits of gubbins, much of which Hermione couldn't place a purpose for; behind the counter, a very small balding man was working on something with a milling machine.

As soon as he noticed Harry, he switched the machine off.

"Aha, Mr Emmerson, isn't it?"

"Mr North, actually." Harry said.

"Ah yes, ah yes, Mr North. That piece you arranged is complete." The little man said.

"Good." Harry said. "I'll take it at once."

The little man grinned (a hideous sight) and unearthed a box from beneath the counter; he handed it to Harry. It had 'Paid' written on the lid; Harry calmly shoved it into his jacket pocket, then led Hermione out.

"What happened there?" Hermione asked as they climbed back into the car.

"One of two things." Harry said. "It depends whether Setsuna looks smug or annoyed when we get back to Ben's place."

"…uh?"

"I'm pretty certain we'll have a Setsuna waiting for us when we get back to Ben's place." Harry said. "Because either she arranged the package, or I went back in time and arranged it, I don't know which yet. If she arranged it she'll turn up and rub in how she saw this coming. If I arranged it she'll be annoyed because temporal paradoxes in the making give her a bitch of a headache. Anyway, I was Mr Bernard last time I talked to Dave, and because I claimed to be three different names the first three times I met him, he always greets me by whatever name I claimed to be last time I saw him. He makes a point of it." The car came to life with a roar, and Harry trod on the throttle.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

When they arrived at Ben's place, Setsuna was indeed lounging on the front deck; she looked a bit smug at Harry, then departed.

"Great, she's playing that game." Harry muttered, and pulled the box out of his pocket and sat down on the deck, opening the box.

"Hmm, very nice." He said, and lifted the contents of the box out.

It was a bright metal S&M-looking collar; the inside was lined with rank after rank of identical runes, while the outside was polished to a nearly mirror-like shine, with runes identical to Hermione's bracelet and a line of crisp Kentare etched into the surface; it closed at the back, fastened by what seemed to be a built-in padlock, and there was a ring of the sort you'd attach a leash to at the front.

Harry handed it to Hermione.

She somewhat doubtfully held it around her neck; there was a sweet breaking sensation in the back of her head, and a discomfort she hadn't been aware of withdrew; thinking about it, she realised that it had been there for her entire life.

She concentrated on levitating, a skill that had always given her trouble; to her delight, her feet lifted smoothly off the floor, and after a moment she was hanging about a foot up.

"Oh wow, Harry!" she gasped, lowering gently back to the floor as her concentration faded and the spell dissipated.

Harry grinned crookedly at her. "Better, huh?"

"Miles." She lowered the collar, and abruptly the tension was back; showers of sparks rolled down her arms, making her jump.

"Oh yeah, you've got it bad alright." Harry said with a nod. "If I don't have mine, my hands burst into flames."

"Uh, where are yours, Harry?" Hermione asked.

Harry smirked.

"Well, it's a matter of a thing fulfilling multiple roles." He said. "I've got strips of ki-charged wood implanted beneath the skin of my forearms as part of the Amazon Hidden Weapons style. When I found out about that, I got some very special wood, inscribed it with runes, and added some useful little enchantments, then got them to charge that with ki. I used to wear twenty bangles on each wrist. This way is much better, it's less of a distinctive mark. Besides, if people see someone with a shitload of silver jewellery they automatically think 'Mage', and if they see someone with none they're likely to not even contemplate the possibility that this person could be a mage."

"So… what does the Kentare on this mean?"

Harry snorted.

"Exactly the same as the High Draconic." He said.

Hermione contemplated him for a long moment, then fastened the collar around her own neck, mentally committing herself to him.

He grinned at her and ran his hand through her hair.

"Come on, Granger." He said, and the two headed round to the house.

"Where are we going?" Hermione asked.

Harry let out a low chuckle.

"To get you that skill upload." He said. "I happen not to trust any New Tasmania quack cyberneticist with your mind, so we're going to Kendarat."

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Bane narrowed his eyes and brought his FAL to his shoulder; his fingers flexed on the battle rifle's pistol grip, and there was a soft click as he set the selector to full auto.

The shape that he saw as he peered through the night vision scope wasn't in the least bit humanic, or even alive – it was all formed of squared-off shapes, metal panels and vent grilles, with visible hydraulic rams at the joints.

It was thirty years since the last time Bane saw a combat droid, and he'd only just managed to survive the meeting last time – he still had scars on his haunch from the killer machine's beam talons.

Mouthing a prayer, he carefully reached forwards to the M203e underslung grenade launcher, sighted, and fired. The high explosive fragmentation grenade smacked into the small of the combat droid's back and detonated, blowing it clear off it's feet; the unicorn was alerted by the grenade burst, and bolted. Fire scythed through the forest as Bane's patrol opened up on the droid, but to no avail; it calmly rose to it's feet, turned, and a bolt of red light burst from it's remaining hand, instantly killing Rayenon. The beam pulsed, and Corvas dropped without a sound; another lethal strobe and Garlax fell, gargling through his ruined throat as his life's blood spurted across the forest floor.

Ducking behind a tree, Bane whistled, signalling the retreat, even as he slipped another grenade into the M203e's breech; he launched it at the droid, then fled into the woods.

He could almost feel the droid's targeting arrays on his back as he ran; his spine itched, but the ravening beam of death didn't come, and he was soon well away with his surviving troops.

In less than thirty seconds, they'd lost three good warriors.

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Madoragan silently listened to Bane's report, then nodded.

"I see." He said.

"What must we do, Father?" Madoragan asked.

"Wait." The old centaur said. "Whence yon wyrm returns, these tidings we shall bear to him. Mayhap a solution he shalt know. For now, we must watch all unicorns within this forest, that we may bring them warning of the coming of this unholy machine." He turned to Firenze. "Firenze, thou shalt seek to acquire weapons able to defeat yon beast of steel. Bane, thou shalt guard the Shining Ones well. Make haste, my sons."

End Chapter.

AN –

Hmm, long chapter, but everything needed to be in this chapter, and that way I get to stretch book 1 a bit further than I'd expected.

Halfway through assembling this chapter I bought and read the newly-released seventh Potterology, and I've been thinking of ways to screw with it's events ever since. It was a fairly interesting experience, reading it in a 'what must I change for Top Dog?' manner; the answer is 'a lot'.

Oh, and I saw half the plot twists coming about a mile off; the only real surprise was exactly who all got put in the dead-books. Much of said list was hugely suckage; three exceptionally cool characters got wasted for no reason other than farming for OMFGs. Lame lame lame.

Best bit… the motorbike. Brick walls out the tailpipe, woo! That's one way to deal with those bloody idiots who drive too close; pity it got smashed up, hopefully Arthur'll help Hagrid rebuild the beast after the war. From the 'roar like a dragon' description, I'm now certain Sirius rode Milwaukee metal; most bikes scream, throb, snarl, or (in the case of Italian bikes) purr. Harleys are about the only bikes that really roar like that. I guess the sidecar was there so Padfoot could fit more than one babe on his bike at a time.

Worst bit… The Snape-Exposition-Retcon-Chapter. It's one of the clumsiest pieces of professional writing I've ever seen; it smacks of an author changing their mind after the last minute. Pathetic.

If anyone wants to suggest any side-plots you'd like to see in this thing (or Biker Half v2.0) go on, suggest away; the more the merrier. I've got the core plot for most of 'Enter the Fnords' hashed out, same goes for the Biker Half core plot, but I could do with many more side-plots, and much of anything is open to change without notice if I hit on (or get suggested) a better idea. I'm taking a certain level of notice of Deathly Hallows, but I'm bloody certain I can write a better final showdown than _that_. If a fanfic had a final Harry-Vs-Voldemort showdown as lame as the canon, the fanfic author would get flamed clean off of the Net.

Note that relationships are a very secondary concern; part of what I'm doing here is a Harry-Harem story wherein the polygamous relationship is treated as inconsequential background detail. I all too often see fics where the H-man gets in by someone, and suddenly said relationship is the be all and end all of the fic.

Very occasionally you'll see it done well; most of the time, you'll see it done in the form of yet a fucking nother shitty slash fic written by some mindless fucktard who shouldn't be allowed access to a keyboard until they've finally learned that text-talk and leet-speak are _not_ the fucking English language, and that there is a difference between English as spoken in California and English as spoken in England.

Note that Ginny hasn't connected this lizard-eyed maniac with the name Potter, mostly due to the absence of a certain scar.

I have realised that I am in fact a Harry/Hermione shipper. I don't have any particular preference in ships when reading other people's fics (aside from the big Not Slash and Draco Is A Fuckwad rejoinders) but I always seem to write those two getting close to one another. Harry is of course the inevitable hero of the piece (after all this is Harry Potter fanfic) while Hermione makes a useful 'reference point' since she's of mundane birth, so at the onset of any fanfic she knows as much about what's going on as the reader, irrespective of how the fanfic's author chooses to mess with the 'wizarding world', and having them very frequently around each other helps. Thing is, I don't enjoy writing about perfect people in perfect relationships blah blah blah, I enjoy writing about people who're just as screwed up as everyone I've ever met, and this frequently leads to dysfunctional and decidedly unhealthy relationships.

The Challenger is the British Army's main battle tank, equivalent to the US Army's M1. The Challenger is heavier armoured than an M1, and has a rifled main gun, allowing it to use the awe-inspiring high explosive squash head ammunition; the ideal pillbox-smasher, also of awesome effect against most armoured vehicles. However, a Challenger is heavier and slower than an M1. I personally think the Challenger is a significantly better tank; you'll never outrun a shell, but you _can_ stop it dead in its tracks… Besides, the Challenger is much more attractive; if that tank was a man it'd make me seriously consider homosexuality.

BlazeStryker, Kuro Neko; you both pretty much summed up my line of reasoning for my 'beefing up' of the Av Kav. Frankly, the way it's described in the canon I'd call it a merciful weapon; compare it to a Reducto curse in the guts (which is in real life considered the most agonisingly painful place to get gunshot) and things start to come into focus.

I've never read any of the Honour Harrington series; I've heard of it in vague terms online, but that's it. I'd like to be pat and say the main inspiration for the starship sequences in this fic was Firefly, but that'd be bullshit; it's a mix of old movies of the moonshots, anecdotes from my crab-fishing days, bits of Peter F Hamilton, a touch of Isaac Asimov, and (believe it or not) the games me and my bro used to play with Lego the best part of twenty years ago. I'm interested in those e-books, but you never leave your email address with your comments. Why not sign up to FFN and drop me a private message? A lot of the people who've favourited or alert listed me seem to have their FFN accounts as a place to stick their faves and to get alerts, and anyway I'd love to be able to communicate with you (and konton) a bit better. Hint Hint Hint.

Going back to the FN P90, I don't have a television so I've never seen any of Stargate. I'm familiar with the P90 from two places; assorted weapons closely based on it appear in the varied versions of Ghost in the Shell, and my best mate has an airsoft version of the P90. Matt's BB-gun P90 looks and feels _absolutely bitchin'_, the only visual differences between it and the real thing are a blocked-off ejection port (which is at the bottom of the pistol grip so barely visible) and the fore-end sighting rail / carrying handle being composed of plastic… unless you count the barrel being like .3mm bigger bore, that is…

Having handled the airsoft version, I know it's muzzle is about two inches ahead of your trigger finger, making it awesomely easy to manoeuvre, it's centre of balance is right on your wrist which makes manoeuvring even easier, the stock is in exactly the right place for shooting from the hip, and the magazine is one of the niftiest pieces of design I've seen in a very long time, which is why I based the A-DRK's magazine on it. I can't see much of any way to improve on the P90's design; aside from side-ejecting into a brass catcher, allowing for prone fire and avoiding scattering evidence-riddled cartridge cases, but then that's not what it's designed for.

A real-world example of a pump-action underslung shotgun on an assault rifle exists in the form of the M870 Masterkey; a specially modified Remington M870 shotgun that attaches to the bottom of an M16 (or variant) much like an M203; as with the M203, it entails using the rifle's magazine as a makeshift pistol grip. It's used by SWAT-type units for blowing locks, thus the name 'Masterkey', and I guess that way the SWAT team's shotgun man can also have an M4 carbine in his hands at the same time as he's holding his shottie. An example can be seen in the first Predator movie; as far as I remember it's used by the Native American dude. I last saw Predator in 1996, so I may very well be wrong on that count. Shit, that's eleven years ago…

Boy, two pages of notes, but I can't figure anyplace to cut 'em down. Oh well, better that you guys don't have to ask me about this stuff.

Catch you all next time,

Doghead Out.


	22. Chapter 22

**This ain't no self-insert fic.**

**This ain't no slash fic neither.**

**This is Top Dog.**

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The city of R'harash'gai't'rath was, Hermione mused, a hell of a sight. She'd visited New York with her parents once (her father had cousins out there) and even Manhattan Island wasn't a patch on this. High-rise didn't even start to describe it; the buildings punched so far into the sky it seemed as if they were going to touch the stars, dagger-like blades of metal and glass. The city was alive with aerial traffic; the world had many levels here, and Kenti flitted every way, balanced on the crackling coronas of blue light that surrounded the jagged bone-like spikes they used for wings, winding between the umpteen flying cars.

Flying Air Harry was an incredible experience anyway; she was currently cradled in his enormous forepaws, the air whistling through her hair as he streaked, fast and impossibly quiet, through the bustling streets, showing the same astonishing sense of position he displayed on a motorbike as he wove through the thick air traffic. Here in this futuristic city, it was an even more amazing thing to experience.

She felt like she'd slipped into a science fiction novel.

They burst from between the skyscrapers and into a vast stretch of open parkland, dotted with widely-dispersed stately homes; a single impossibly tall crystalline white building reached into the stratosphere from the centre of the pastures and woodlands. Harry swung to the left a little and into a dive, aiming towards an enormous Arabian-looking white and gold manor house perhaps fifteen miles from the city limits. Hermione amused herself by counting the seconds; as Harry set down in the titanic courtyard, she figured his speed had touched two hundred miles per hour in that sweeping dive.

He set her on her feet, and transformed back to the Harry she knew.

"Welcome to my humble abode." He said.

"You live _here_?" Hermione boggled, her eyes going a bit glazed as she stared around. The building was almost the size of Hogwarts Castle, but without that establishment's slightly foreboding military air, and the manor had two wings that stretched out the front, forming a courtyard you'd have been able to land a dozen Blink Dogs in; one side of the courtyard was composed of a rank of garage doors, which were open, revealing a line of assorted luxury cars, hotrods, and armoured vehicle. Balconies festooned the walls, several surrounded by oddly birdcage-looking assemblies of gleaming gold; a minaret surmounted the centre of the building, surrounded by turrets and towers. All in all, it was one seriously impressive sight.

"This old heap of rocks used to belong to Kendarat's biggest crimelord." Harry said. "Until the accident; poor sod walked into a bullet, terrible shame. Then certain evidence was passed to Department Six, and all his assets were seized, his operations were shut down, nearly six thousand mobsters killed, another seventy-three thousand locked up, and close to half a million kidnapped children rescued. I got this place as a little token of gratitude after they finished the clean-up. That job paid bloody well, and I always enjoy sticking it to child-slave traffickers, especially the bastards in the grab-to-order business. Of course, I had to make some internal modifications to the building, creating a room big enough for me to sleep in dragon form for a start. Come on in."

They went on in.

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**Disclaimer: Connection failure. Disclaimer cancelled.**

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**Top Dog: Enter the Fnords**

**Book 1: Harry Johnson and the Headmaster's Socks.**

**A Doghead13 / United Galaxies fanfic**

**Written & produced by Calum J 'Doghead13' Wallace**

**Brought to you by Hairy Scottish Git Productions, GMBH**

**This is not a drill.**

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**Chapter 22: The Illegitimate Son of Man.**

**(In which the final pieces move into place)**

Harry led Hermione through the cavernous entry hall and down a flight of stairs via several twists and turns, finally leading to the basement, which seemed to have taken it's design cues from the Hogwarts dungeons; the doors down here had locks and were composed of bars. Finally, they arrived at a dingy room that could have doubled as a torture chamber.

It had a chair in the centre and racks of ominous tools along the walls. Several spotlights fixed on the chair added to the interrogation-room feel. The chair looked like something you'd find in a dentist's surgery; Hermione was for fairly obvious reasons very familiar with the type. This one, however, featured a multitude of straps strategically positioned to hold it's occupant in situ, and anchored to the top of the headrest was a gizmo that looked like the guts of an espresso machine attached to the base of a colander and festooned with wires and electronic components; it was affixed via a set of sliding adjustment rails and clamps. From the 'espresso machine', a bundle of cables ran to a tangled rat's nest of computer equipment; several flatscreen monitors attached to a thing that looked like a microphone stand with big ideas, a couple of cameras focused on the dental chair, two keyboards with attendant mice, and a knot of internals that seemed to be about to slide onto the floor, all plumbed into a pair of old tower cases with the side doors ripped off. Harry flicked down a bank of dip switches and the whole lot powered on with a whirr of fans, a ragged chorus of post beeps and the clicks of monitors turning on.

Hermione resolved to find out how it worked.

"How does it work, Harry?"

"Long story." Harry said. "It's mainly a combination of electrodes against your scalp and magnetic fields, all triggering your neurons in specific patterns. It's pretty complex, I'll fill you in on the details some other time if you like. Take a seat." He gestured at the dental chair, and Hermione rather doubtfully settled herself, whereupon Harry began strapping her down.

"What's with this?" she asked.

"Long story short, mind-programming sometimes causes a reaction much like a brief epileptic fit." Harry explained.

"Uh, how often is 'sometimes'?"

"About eighty-five percent of people spazz out during the upload." Harry said with a shrug

"Harry, is this safe?"

He nodded.

"Safe as anything ever is." He said, and lowered the espresso machine into place; it locked down with a click, and Hermione found herself now unable to turn her head. "You know, it's incredible what a sentient brain is capable of, especially if you give it a bit of electronic assistance." He turned and flicked a couple of switches; the whole setup powered on, moniters lighting up and filling with readouts, things whirring and sparking, globes filling up with sizzling energy – all the trappings. "Check this out."

Harry pointed at one of the monitors; with a start, Hermione realised it was displaying what she was seeing from her left eye, complete with the blind spot and the startlingly-wide peripheral vision. The monitor beside it was displaying the view from her right eye.

"That's _weird_." She said.

"You think that's weird, check _this_ out." Harry said, pointing at another monitor, this one full of trickling vertical lines of weird green symbols.

"It doesn't mean much to me." Hermione said.

"Funny; it ought to mean a lot to you." Harry said. "That readout shows your brain's activity; in essence, that is a real-time display of your thoughts. Notice the spike in activity when you realised what I was saying; that's what being slightly creeped out looks like when encoded into full-sensory VR modelling data. The five pillars at the far left are your conscious mind; each set of five progressively to the right is deeper and deeper into your subconscious. The rightmost set of five is the deepest subconscious; it's the level at which your brain controls your involuntary reflexes such as heartbeat and breathing."

"So… why the picture of the view from my eyes?"

"It's how the system logs onto your brain." Harry said. "Once it's got a clear and steady image it knows it's decoded the particular way your brain's wired. There has to be an operator, that's me, in case it gets a clear, steady and _wrong_ image, that's why the displays are positioned so you can see them. You may be interested to know you're mildly autistic; it's called Asperger's syndrome and it's fairly common in exceptionally intelligent humans. Bill Gates and Albert Einstein are classic cases of Asperger's."

He fiddled around with something on another monitor that Hermione couldn't quite make out from that angle, then grinned at her.

"Ready?"

"As I'll ever be."

"Upload starting… now." Harry said, and slapped 'Enter' on the left-hand keyboard.

Hermione's body immediately began bucking and twitching as her consciousness dissolved into a flood of meaningless data overload; from her perspective, the world exploded into a billion points of light, and a brief moment later it was over and suddenly she knew how to mentally defend herself. It was a bit like meditation, but not quite.

"… holy SHIT!" she said.

Harry smirked at her, shut the computers down, unbuckled her from the hot seat, and the two headed back topsides; Harry unearthed a subspace door and affixed it within a room that he had locked when they entered. From there, they returned directly to Ben's house, and Harry sprawled down on the veranda once more.

"That's that then." He said.

"That was one of the weirdest things I've ever felt." Hermione said. "I'm gonna go finish my book."

"Later, kid." Harry said with a nod. He watched her go, then slowly shook his head and slumped back on the veranda to stare at the sky, a slight smile playing over his lips.

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Over the intervening days until Christmas, Jeff had struck up a friendship with Arthur Weasely, and the varied CTMAers houses had almost become extensions of one another in everyone's heads; for that reason, at about ten on Christmas morning UK time, most of the CTMA and their families were gathered around a sizeable Christmas tree in Ben Chaos's living room. There was a definite mound of presents, and things rapidly devolved into a free-for-all of package-passing and tearing paper, until someone handed a package to Harry.

Harry's face froze; he stared blankly at the package, then slipped a lock-knife out of his pocket and started carefully slitting the tape, acting like he simply could not believe what he was seeing.

The paper fell away, revealing a sight very familiar to Ron, who had passed the package to Harry – it was one of Molly Weasely's hand-knit jumpers. Harry silently picked it up, then reached a hand to his chest and slowly unfastened his cross-belts; there was a rattle of metal as he carefully placed the quartet of swords and duo of handguns on the table, then pulled the immense fuzzy red-and-gold jumper on.

A drip descended from Harry's nose, leaving a damp stain on his lap, and Ron suddenly realised that the usually unshakable mercenary was crying.

"You okay, Harry?" he asked. The racket quieted as the crowd picked up that something was going on.

"Harry?" Ron asked.

Harry shook his head, then abruptly grabbed his weapons and bolted for the subspace door and the Blink Dog.

"What's up with him?" Charlie asked.

"Aw crikey." Ben muttered.

"I don't know." Ron said.

"I think I know." Hermione said, standing up. "But it's private."

With that, she hurried off after Harry.

Arriving outside his stateroom door, she hesitated for a moment, then knocked; there was the usual pause, then a muffled voice said, 'Come in'.

She did. As usual, Harry saw who it was and set his gun down.

"Hey kid." He said; he sounded pretty rough. He was sprawled on his bunk, his feet at the head end and his head against the wall, with Carla cuddled up to one side and Kitten the other.

Closing the door, Hermione hurried over and sat down at the head end; Harry grinned crookedly at her and slumped back with a sigh.

"Are you going to be okay?" Hermione asked.

"I'll be alright in a minute." Harry said, staring at the ceiling. "It's just… shit, I told you how I grew up… Setsuna's a good kid, but she's a top-level Imperial officer. She doesn't celebrate Christmas. Hell, the only festivals she celebrates are the Empress's coronation and Unification Day, and neither is exactly full of good cheer…"

"That's the first Christmas present you've ever had, isn't it?" Hermione asked, pretty certain he'd just confirmed her hunch.

Harry nodded, his stare going blank again.

"Yeah." he said. "Damnit, those guys are too decent to get dragged down into my world… what the Hell is it with having to make these goddamned decisions all the time?"

"Harry, they're not being 'dragged down into your world', they're inviting you into _their_ world." Hermione said. "Look, we may not be dragons with quarter ton brains, but we _are_ adults and we're capable of making our own decisions."

Harry smiled. Seeing him smile in a way that reached his eyes was highly unusual, and Hermione savoured it.

"You were right." He said.

"What about?"

"When you said you may not know my past but you know me, you were right." Harry told her, sitting up. "You certainly knew the right thing to say."

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The rest of Christmas day passed normally enough, with one particular event of note; late that evening while the entire CTMA was relaxing with beer, a package was delivered to Ben's house. It was addressed to Harry, who was promptly presented with it.

He made a curious noise, got out some bombsniffing equipment, checked it, shrugged, and opened it, revealing a slick silvery cloth item.

"Well I'll be a…" Harry murmured, picking the silvery cloth up.

"Is that what it looks like?" Fred and George chorused as the lizard-eyed mercenary draped it over his arm and it became completely invisible, along with the section of his arm it was hanging over.

"What did you do that for, Johnson?" S'tarak'hai complained, earning himself puzzled looks.

"Sorry." Harry said. "Just checking something. Anyway, if you think it looks like an invisibility cloak, then you'd be right."

"Cool." The twins chorused.

"Pity they don't last that long." Ron remarked.

Harry let out a dry chuckle.

"It _looks_ like an invisibility cloak." He said. "But it's _not_ an invisibility cloak. It just withstood every sensor system I've got – even sonar."

"Huh?" Ron blankly asked.

"Real invisibility cloaks aren't like the ones in children's books." Harry told him. "There's a reason the military don't use invisibility cloaks; they're more expensive than thermoptic camouflage, and they're not as effective though they admittedly have a marginally longer operational lifespan. A normal invisibility cloak only functions on the visible wavelengths of light; on thermograph they act as a black body, they read on things like sonar, and they're utterly useless against anything like a magnetic anomaly detector or a motion tracker or whatever. I just ran an active scan with every sensor I've got over this thing, and not one of them detected it or my arm. Hey catboy, we need to try something. I'm going to put this on; after that I want you to hit me with every sensor you've got."

Harry calmly slipped the cloak on, thus vanishing.

S'tarak'hai stared fixedly in his direction for several long moments, his eyes repeatedly changing focus, then slowly shook his head in wonder.

"Unbelievable." He murmured. "You are still standing there, aren't you Johnson? There are not even pressure marks on the carpet – everything I have is telling me there is nobody there."

There was a gleeful cackle, and Harry's face appeared suspended in midair as he pulled the cloak's hood back.

"This has so many possibilities…" he gloated.

"So, how come that one's better than normal?" Ron asked.

"I don't know for sure." Harry said. "There are only five perfect invisibility cloaks known to exist. If it's the one I think it is, I just scored me an in on another weapon of pretty much indescribable power."

Hermione stifled a wince, aware she was what made him say 'another'.

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The remainder of the holidays passed quickly. The CTMA got communally drunk on New Year's Eve, then spent the rest of the holidays doing more-or-less family-related things, and then on the 17th of January, it was back to Hogwarts. That evening, Hagrid got a surprise visit when a voice said, "Hello, MacDuff."

Hagrid looked up from where he'd been preparing the Therestral's feed; Harry was stood nearby, giving the big man a contemplative look. The weredragon mercenary had a Kalashnikov AK47 assault rifle slung on his shoulder along with his assorted swords; that was presumably the source of the crackle of rifle fire Hagrid had heard earlier.

"A guid evenin' tae yeh, laddie." Hagrid said.

"There's something I've been wondering about." Harry remarked, casually leaning against the wall and watching as Hagrid mixed the bloody bone meal into the barley mash.

"Aye?" Hagrid asked. "Fit's that?"

"You and Black dug me out of what was left of my folks place, right?" Harry checked; Hagrid doubtfully nodded.

"Aye." He said. "Ah dinnae lak tae talk aboot it, 'twas a bad nicht."

"Well, I've been trying to determine precisely what happened that night." Harry stated. "There are a lot of questions, and I haven't got the whole answer – yet. I know about the prophecy, but something seems a bit off about it, and anyway why didn't Tommy-boy take any of his crew? He always operated by sending his butt-buddies out to bring victims to him, right? The bastard's obsessed with death; he's terrified of it, he's committed everything he has to his own safety. He used classic guerrilla tactics – pure hit-and-run, normally with a bunch of diversionary attacks at the same time. Yet when he decided to take out my family, he went alone and in person. That was a kill mission and I was the target; in his boots I would have dropped one of the three nukes he stole from Clan Asinara. Something drove Old Mouldy to completely break MO, and when people like him do something unusual like that, there is always a reason. _Always_."

"Why're ye sae bothert aboot it?" Hagrid asked.

Harry snorted.

"Because the fucker's still kicking. We're almost certain he's who's been killing unicorns, and Dumbledore's paying me to get rid of the bastard. Permanently this time, and I'm going to really enjoy putting the little shit down." He paused. "But anyway, you know how Setsuna's my daughter? Well, that gave me access to the galaxy's finest time machines. I've been over the last fifteen years more than twenty times, searching. Asking awkward questions. I've found out a lot; I know that son-of-a-bitch better than anyone else alive. I even know his exact possessions when he came to the Collegium; I have several of them stored in a safe place. Like to know something real funny? I've got the bastard's teddy bear."

"Why'd ye no go see whit happened that nicht?" Hagrid asked.

"Fidelus charm, and I'm not on the allowed list." Harry told him. "I can't find the building until the wards finished unravelling, that's about half an hour after you were there. I know the official version of events; well, I want the inside story, and every viewpoint I can get helps."

Hagrid slowly nodded.

"Aye." He said, and, casting his memory back, he began to talk.

---/All Hallow's Eve, 1981 AD/---

Hagrid Murdo MacDuff was relaxing with a little whiskey. Most of magi society was currently unable to relax, but Hagrid was in a hut less than a hundred yards from the domain of sharp-eyed centaurs with automatic weapons, and said centaurs happened to rather like the half-giant piper.

His relaxation was broken by the telephone ringing.

He picked it up and said "Aye?" into it.

"Hi Hagrid, this is Lily." Said a strained-sounding voice. "Or rather, this is a recording of me. If you're hearing this, I'm probably dead…"

Two minutes later, Hagrid was out of the house and tearing south through the night in his battered GMC pickup. It took him half an hour to Godric's Hollow, blowing the speed limit wide open, and he ran the old truck so hard the engine seized on the outskirts of the village; he jumped out and ran like Hell for where he could see a towering cloud of dust.

There was another vehicle near the shattered ruin that had been the Potter home; Sirius Black's big old Corley motorbike. It was laying on it's side with the engine idling; Hagrid ran headlong past it and skidded to a halt as he saw the leather-clad man desperately raking through the wreckage, repeatedly shouting James, Lily and Harry's names.

Hagrid joined him without a moment's thought.

It took the two men about ten minutes to find the first signs there'd been someone there; a charred patch with a horribly scorched chunk of foot clad in the remains of a safety boot laying at one side; Sirius howled like a tortured dog as he recognised the boot as belonging to James Potter.

The howl was answered from within the rubble; a very young child, crying for his mother, and the two men sprang back into action, frantically clearing wreckage away from the area the cry was coming from.

Then Hagrid heaved a beam aside, and his heart skipped a beat as he found a bloody arm, dressed in a jumper he recognised; it was Lily's favourite jumper, and there was her wedding ring on the hand's ring finger.

He lifted the next piece of rubble away, dreading what he'd find next, and went wide-eyed at what was revealed.

Lily had a pair of massive holes burned through her left ear. Part of her skull was blown in; Hagrid realised with a sort of sick fascination that he could see right through her head. She'd been shot in the head with some kind of heavy blaster, yet somehow she was still breathing.

"Lily? Lily? Kin yeh hear me?" he asked, scrambling to get bits of wreckage away from her.

She didn't respond, didn't open her eyes; she just lay there.

Scrabbling at the rubble, Sirius found the cot; there was a blaster scar on the frame, and a heavy sawn-off double-barrelled positron rifle was lying next to it; there seemed to be some bits of pallid finger still on the blaster's pistol grip.

Sirius lifted the whimpering toddler from the cot as Hagrid picked Lily up.

"Hagrid." Sirius said, his voice shaking.

"Fit?" Hagrid asked.

"Take Lily and Harry to Dumbledore. Use my bike – I won't be needing it any more. Get moving, man. There could be more of the bastards out there."

With that, he handed Hagrid the toddler, and hurried away into the darkness.

Puzzled and worried, Hagrid got comatose woman and crying child tucked safely into his huge jacket, heaved the Corley upright, climbed onboard and put the massive bike into gear.

The hulking machine roared as he gave it some throttle and aimed the front for Hogwarts, ignoring his poor old truck.

The next evening, Dumbledore took Harry to Surrey. In the interim, Sirius Black confronted Peter Pettigrew in a Hereford supermarket, leading to a tremendous explosion that pretty much vaporised Pettigrew; blame for the blast was pinned on a splinter group of the IRA who had recently tangled with elements of 22 Special Air Services not far from the scene of the explosion. Black was unscathed, and was hurriedly shipped off to the Azkaban system and its maximum-security prison. Two days later, the splattered remnants of Voldemort was identified in the rubble of the Potter home.

The rest is, as they say, history.

---/The Present/---

"Thanks." Harry said.

"Did yeh nae remember inny a' yon stuff?" Hagrid asked.

Harry grimaced.

"Sort of." He said. "When I was eight Vernon gave me a skull fracture and all my memories from before then are a bit unreliable. I often get the order of events or who said what wrong, and I can never tell any of Mom and Dad's mates apart. Well, thanks. I've just got one more question; considering the Fidellus, how'd you know where to look?"

"Whell, ah built yon hoose fair yair faither." Hagrid said. "There's nae minny folks wha ken it, but iff'n yeh built a place whi' yair aen twa hands, yon Fidellus cannea hide it frae ye. Ah think 'tis why puir Lilly sent yon message tae me; she kenned Ah'd be able tae find yon place nae matter whit."

"Huh. I didn't know that." Harry said. "Interesting… thanks again." With that he walked away, considering what he'd just heard.

Hagrid worriedly watched him go, then heaved a sigh, finished feeding the Therestrals, and went to get himself a whiskey. Having just got done talking about the second worst day of his life, he really needed a drink.

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Harry was just about to head back to the castle when something came up; his eyes went slit-like as he saw the figure working into the edge of the forest.

It was Quirrel. Harry would have missed the Assault Magecraft lecturer if he hadn't been noodling around with his varied cybernetic optic sensors at that point; the man stood out on thermograph, but was moving silently and like a professional. Something wasn't right.

Harry slid his AK47 off his shoulder and carefully clicked the selector down to semi, glad he had it loaded with saboted light armour penetraters.

**Do you read me, Ben?** He sent, aware that his comms radio could all too easily be picked up, but equally aware there wasn't much he could do.

**Loud and clear.** Came the New Aussie's response. **What's going down?**

**I'm currently in pursuit of Quirrel on the edge of the forest, I'm not sure if he's heading deeper in.** Harry replied. **Keep a close eye on the map your end – if he moves more than two hundred metres into the trees, contact the centaurs.**

**Roger that.** Ben said. The wonders of cybernetic brain augmentation; Harry didn't even need to subvocalise, and Ben's responses arrived without causing even the tiniest of noises at Harry's end. The really early models relied on microphones implanted in the mastoid bone along with a tiny speaker in the inner ear, but those had been obsolete for going on sixty thousand years. Six billion microscopic robots inside Harry's brain did the job perfectly.

**What's your range, Harry?**

**Fifteen metres, I've got a clean shot.** Harry loved his Kalasher. It wasn't exactly the most refined piece of kit, but load it up with armour piercing rounds and it'd do a right number on anything short of a tank, and you'd have to seriously abuse it to get it to break down. The AK47 has a reputation for inaccuracy, but a properly-maintained Kalashnikov can be fully as accurate as a US M16 rifle; sad to say, most AK's are not properly maintained. Some people have no idea how to treat a classic; Harry's Kalashnikov was in far better condition than when it left the factory. It was of course an unusual model – the original AK47 with the machined receiver and bayonet lug, as opposed to the far more normal modernised version with it's stamped metal receiver, or the smaller-calibre AK74. He'd selected the best parts from sixteen guns and replaced the furniture with Aussie hardwood, making for the sweetest Kalashnikov AK47 he'd ever had the luck to lay his hands on.

Another figure loomed up ahead, the thermal image spoilt by the thickening trees, just as Ben said, **Snape's loitering about fifty metres south-southeast of your position.**

**I've got him on thermo.** Harry assured.

"… d-don't know w-why you w-w-wanted t-t-to m-meet here of a-a-all p-places, S-Severus."

"Oh, I thought we'd keep this under wraps." Snape growled. "Students aren't supposed to know about the Philosopher's Stone, after all, though I understand that the Potter brat's fanboys have determined its presence."

**Very interesting.**

Harry couldn't make out Quirrel's mumbled reply; he focused his audio implant's directional mike just a moment too late.

"Have you found out how to get past that brute of MacDuff's yet?"

"B-b-b-but S-s-Severus, I-"

"You don't want me as your enemy, Mycroft." Snape said, taking a step towards Quirrel.

**What's going down?** Ben asked.

"I-I d-don't k-know w-w-w-what y-you-"

"You know exactly what I mean."

**Little chat between our two useless bastard lecturers. Maybe it's time my Kalasher got a new barrel, I could so totally drill the pair of them right now this second, and nobody would know it.**

A bird passed between Harry and the duo of teachers; the whir of wings snowed out the directional mike for a moment.

"-your little bit of hocus-pocus. I'm waiting."

"B-but I d-d-don't-"

"Very well." Snape sneered. "We'll have another little discussion soon enough, when you've had time to arrive at a conclusion as to where your loyalties lie." Snape stalked away; Harry damped his Force presence to the absolute minimum as the hook-nosed man approached. Even still, as he passed Harry's position, Snape glanced directly at the weredragon mercenary and sneered; Harry very nearly blew him away on the spot.

Several moments passed in silence, then Quirrel muttered, "Bastard" in a thoroughly not-Quirrel voice and headed on a beeline back towards the castle; Harry had cast a subtle Notice-Me-Not charm on himself in the interim, of the sort commonly known as an SEP (Somebody Else's Problem) field, and it worked perfectly.

**Snape and Quirrel are on the move.** Harry sent. **Their trajectories?**

**Straight for the castle.** Ben returned.

**Okay. Tell me if either diverges back into the woods. I just overheard some rather intriguing scraps of conversation, I'll fill you in on it later; right now I'm going to go touch base with some centaurs.** Harry slid the AK47's selector to safe, slung the gun on his shoulder as he straightened up, and headed towards the depths of the forest.

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In the clearing where he'd found the dead unicorn a few months before, he found three of the silvery beauties, being watched over by a round dozen heavily-armed centaurs, one of whom had an RPG-7 rocket launcher in addition to a scruffy MP38 sub-machine gun.

"I'd swap that subgun for a brand new MP5 if you're interested." Harry remarked, earning a slightly cockeyed look from the centaur. "What? It's a classic and I haven't got one in my collection

"Greetings, wyrm." Bane said. "My father wishes to talk with thee; art thou willing to visit with him?"

"Certainly." Harry said. "Has something come up?"

"Indeed." Bane grimly stated. "My father shalt tell thee of the devilry we have unearthed. Rhanean, lead thee this wyrm to our glade."

Harry nodded, and departed with the indicated centaur; a slender dapple-grey youth with a slightly knackered-looking Kalashnikov.

The centaur village was about twenty minutes brisk walk from the glade; it was surrounded by a stockade, within which was a cluster of stone-built wood-roofed 'black houses', smoke gently leaking from the thatch of each. Rhanean showed Harry to the centremost house.

"A wyrm to speak with thee, Sire." He said.

"Enter, enter." Came Madoragan's voice, and Rhanean gestured Harry in.

The house was half-filled with smoke, clustering near the ceiling and gradually depositing layer after layer of soot; Madoragan was seated near the fire, surrounded by about a dozen naked centauresses, and a pair of armed warriors stood in attendance. Several assault rifles stood on a wooden display stand next to a massive oak chest of the type known as a creel; that and the several wide sheet-covered straw beds were the only furniture. There was a rattle of chains as the centauresses nervously shifted so Madoragan was between them and this strange interloper; it was obvious that they had never seen anything like Harry before.

"Welcome, wyrm." The old centaur said.

"Well met, Madoragan." Harry replied. "How've things been while I was away?"

"Grave tidings I bear." Madoragan said, and heaved a sigh. "My son hath identified the assailant that now stalks the Forest's unicorns."

He reached into a pouch, and withdrew a folded piece of paper, which he unfolded and handed to Harry.

Harry stared fixedly at the sketch it bore for a long moment.

"HK-40 assassin droid." He said. "Someone's got access to top quality kit, those things cost more than a _really_ nice car. Well, I've got some good news; catboy's got twelve grav rifles with a thousand rounds each for you folks, with the compliments of the First Legion. One slug would stop one of those things dead in it's tracks, and I really do mean dead. You don't want to cook off too many rounds though – they'd punch clean through this house."

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The next evening, Harry and S'tarak'hai lugged several large crates into the fringes of the forest; January then slipped past quickly. The Hufflepuff-Ravenclaw gravball match went 280-40 to Ravenclaw, leading Harry to remark that the Puffs 'need to jack in that team and start over.' In class, Hermione found herself having a lot easier time of things courtesy of the stabiliser's effects on her aura; she also noticed that a lot of purebloods were now treating her with some semblance of respect and a not inconsiderate amount of fear, which after a bit of thought she attributed to the Kentare around her neck.

Hermione and Harry didn't go out biking much due to the amount of ice and snow on the roads, and C.H.A.R.G.E races were put on hold after Charlie Patton lost control on black ice, hit and killed a sheep, and wrecked his car; 1997 was determined to come in with a chill blast, and a tremendous storm came pounding in off the Atlantic ocean, putting Hogwarts onto it's internal generators as trees went down on the power lines, which was apparently something that happened two or three times every winter. Due to a combination of a fallen tree and heavy snowdrifting, the road out of Hogwarts was blocked for four days; Hogsmeade was only accessible on foot, and you could forget about going down to Mallaig. Many snowball fights were had, and Harry showed off by creating a life-size ice sculpture of Queen Rialia the Twelfth of Kendarat. This led to what would later be termed the Great Snowman Contest of '97; it should be noted that Michelle Chaos won.

On Friday the 31st of January at dinner, the whole school received a sharp surprise when a tall and slender man came sloping into the Great Hall. He was a rather unprepossessing specimen, dressed in a grubby brown leather greatcoat and a wide-brimmed slouch hat that between them concealed most of his face; apart from the pair of glittering longswords that he had across his back, he looked startlingly like a bum. All conversation ceased as the man slouched over to the staff table and approached Dumbledore.

"Gabriel." The old man said. "This is a pleasant surprise; what brings you to my table this evening."

"This is an official visit, Albus." The man said. "I'm afraid I have some bad news; we'd better speak in private."

Dumbledore nodded, hastily standing up; he gave McGonagall a sharp nod, and departed alongside Gabriel.

"Who was that?" Hermione asked Harry.

"Gabriel Van Helsing." Harry said. "He's the chief of the Supernatural Investigation Department. Number one on Britain's list of people you really don't want to piss off."

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"We found Arabella Figg… or at least, what's left of her." Gabriel said. The two old comrades were now in Dumbledore's office, each holding a small glass of brandy. "The body was in a deep-freeze down in Southall, so she's barely decomposed, but we think she's been dead since immediately after she vanished. She was killed by a single gunshot to the back of her head, and she'd been tortured before she was killed; whoever did the dead used some fairly crude implements – a rack for the main part, though there's cuts bruises and welts all over her. The weapon used was a .45 auto, and the bullet exited her head just below her left eye; from the powder burns on her scalp the gun was held against the back of her head when it was fired, execution-style. We checked her for psionics residues; the body registered only 0.003 on the Mason scale, there's barely any sign of her soul ever having existed. I believe the bullet carried a soulkiller enchantment; admittedly, we are unsure whether she was still alive when she was shot, it could have been a cack-handed attempt to disguise a soulkilling or soul-eater curse, but I doubt it."

"That's terrible." Dumbledore said, looking grim.

"That's not the worst part." Gabe stated.

"Then what is?" Dumbledore asked.

Gabe handed Dumbledore a photograph.

Dumbledore looked at it and immediately went a bit pale.

"Oh _Hell_." He whispered.

Someone had carved a certain skull-and-snake sigil into Arabella Figg's forehead, deep enough they'd marked her to the bone.

"That's why I doubt the bullet was an attempt to disguise the use of the Avrea Kedavera." Gabe said. "If they'd tried to disguise it, would they have done that? I don't think so."

"So it begins once more." Dumbledore murmured, briefly looking like a haggard old man. "When the hell are we going to be left in peace?"

"I wish I could say." Gabe said. "Can you make it down to London? We need to confirm her identity, and you knew her better than anyone else alive."

Dumbledore nodded gravely, drained his brandy, and rose to his feet.

"Let's go."

**---End Chapter---**

AN –

I managed to accurately predict something in 'Deathly Hallows' in this fic, and it's been long enough since the book came out that I probably don't need to worry about spoilers too much any more; the people who're mental enough to be infuriated have probably long since read the book. Anyway, my prediction was the suits of armour around Hogwarts being used as a defensive mechanism. Of course, mine are a bit more deadly than Rowling's, but then Hogwarts Collegium Arcanum deals with things a whole load more deadly than what Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry has to handle…

I also foresaw Snape actually turning out to be a good guy, Snape's adoration for Lily, and I figured that Harry was the last Horacrux several chapters before Harry did. Much of book 7 was along the lines I'd expected; I think it says something about Rowling's foreshadowing. I must admit Snape's being on the side of angels (as the saying goes) came as a relief; I personally think he's one of the best characters in the series, I think having an asshole of that degree as one of the good guys is an excellent idea; you don't have to be nice to be a hero, and I've got a certain level of respect for anyone who sticks to his guns to Snape's level; I think his treatment of Harry was decidedly immature, but at least he went out with his honour intact, though that said his death was a horrible waste nearly on the level of Remus, Fred, and Tonks deaths.

There's now six characters on my canon-deaths-that-will-survive-Top-Dog list; Sirius, Dumbledore, Snape, Fred, Remus, and Tonks. I probably won't kill Dobby either, because he's too much fun to die.

I've got mixed feelings about the fates the Malfoys; Lucius deserved to severely eat it, but Narcissa's delicate backstab of Voldie was absolutely beautiful and very believable and I for one don't think Draco's entirely responsible for his own behaviour, though he's still a slimy little shit; he at least saw what he was becoming and had an entirely human reaction, and it is my belief that his father is largely responsible for the way Draco behaved as a teenager.

Moving on to things in this chapter, I'd hoped to have it a touch longer, but I hadn't got much of anything to fit in the segue gaps apart from something that was way too long.

I have no idea if it'd be possible to reprogram a brain the way I described, but I do know that electricity is how an EEG (Electro-Encapleograph, though I'm unsure of the spelling) detects brainwaves. But then, electroshock therapy is in a way reprogramming a brain via the application of electricity, and the signals that comprise thought are in fact electrical, so maybe it's conceptually possible. The 'espresso machine' was inspired by a device in one of the Batman movies, which did pretty much the same job as this one, while the rest of it (including Hermione's remark) is more or less drawn from The Matrix, though admittedly they only spazzed out their eyes.

Asperger's syndrome is something I'm quite familiar with as I am another classic case; it's usually described as a mild form of autism. The kid sat in a corner rocking back and forth and making cow sound effects is autistic; the kid running around flapping his arms and blathering endlessly about something inconsequential has Asperger's, and please believe me when I tell you that he won't ever realise you're not interested unless you stop being politely uninformative and tell him, at which point he'll go 'Oh, okay then.'

One thing that Asperger's (and autism in general) definitely tells us is that there are many very different ways a human brain can wire itself, thus the talk of the machine needing to know that. I think mild Asperger's makes perfect sense for Hermione, both my version and the canon; she's bookish, obsessive, overly logical, very respectful of rules, and has poor social skills – all of which describes a lot of Asperger's kids with a startling level of accuracy. For some reason, girls tend to be better at learning coping mechanisms that disguise their Asperger's, which has led to the popular myth that Asperger's is a male thing, which disgusts me since I'm pretty sure it leaves an awful lot of girls to go through their lives thinking they're insane just like I did up until I was finally diagnosed.

For where I got thermoptic camouflage, consult your local copy of Ghost in the Shell.

The Kalashnikov AK47 really can be made into one exceptionally accurate rifle. The AK was designed to continue operating with only the barest minimum of maintenance; it is a gun meant to be handed to a barely-trained conscript, and it is designed to enable said barely-trained man to effectively lay down fire on hostile positions without needing much of any marksmanship skill. I still think the US and British armies need to have a talk to Comrade Kalashnikov as concerns the designs of their rifles; not only did ol' Mikhail design a very pretty rifle, he designed a supremely reliable and reasonably accurate rifle that's probably more widely recognised than any other gun, ever. There's just something about that profile that screams 'Don't mess with me, mofo!' in a language understood by everyone on Earth.

As it happens, I have a fully metal airsoft AK47; she's an SRC, her furniture is synthetic but she's otherwise made out of the same materials as the real thing. She's even a similar weight to the real AK; holding her inspires awe. She's a repro of the original AK47 with that machined receiver; boy is that one sweet piece! I recently went batshit and burned her motor out; I made the mistake of ripping off a whole load of full magazines one after another without giving her motor rest time, which is a good way to get it to pack up, but her replacement ticker is on order. I have a fore-end RAS rail system on her fitted with a red laser and a holographic red-dot sight; the rail system was designed for the Tokyo Marui AK so fitting it was rather tricky, but it looks awesome.

I'll shortly be getting a gas-blowback Desert Eagle (it's on the same order as Natasha's new motor) and I intend to get an FN FAL in the near future; the Des is my favourite semi-auto handgun because it's a frickin' monster and the FAL is A) my second-favourite rifle and B) the absolute sweetest electric airsoft rifle money can buy. By now you'll probably have guessed that the Kalashnikov AK47 assault rifle is my number one top favourite gun; I need to replace Natasha's stock and pistol grip with more tactical-looking ones to match her fore-end, but that's just icing on an already very tasty cake.

I feel for airsofters overseas (especially in Canada and down under) I really do; here in Britain, we don't have to have those orange barrel tips, my Natasha is realistic enough to use in a big-budget movie, even for close-up work… Of course, the laws for transporting realistic reproductions (airsofts included) here in the UK are the same as the laws for transporting a real gun – you have to have 'em in a proper gun bag or hardcase and getting them out in public is illegal. Britain's laws concerning firearms are pretty strict, but they work – gun crime is extremely unusual over here. The argument about British cops not carrying guns is bullshit – your average beat bobby doesn't have a gun because, thanks to guns being harder to get than even the most illegal of drugs, he doesn't _need_ one. The going rate for a 9mm auto in the British criminal world is about £200, with bullets costing £5 apiece; that's about another £100 for a high-capacity magazine's worth. The long and the short of it is, much as the NRA may hate to admit it, gun control _works_. It doesn't work _perfectly_, but a thing doesn't have to be perfect to work _well_. Or maybe we're just a calmer bunch than the Yanks.

Gaah, that's another clonker of an Author's Notes. Oh well, catch you all next time,

Doghead Out.


	23. Chapter 23

**This ain't no self-insert fic.**

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Fred and George Weasely had come to an important decision.

The CTMA had noticed that leaving Draco alone for a few days led to him becoming increasingly jumpy, so it was about a week since they'd pranked the bleach blonde brat and they'd decided it was time for something that might hopefully permanently scar the little bastard.

Draco was going to be suspended by his ankles from a chandelier in the Great Hall Monday morning at breakfast, courtesy of some sabotaged boots; the twins had been quite startled when Filch of all people casually left a book claiming to be the prank journal of the legendary Marauders on his desk in front of them with a pointed comment that it contained a number of truly spectacular practical jokes and he really hoped it didn't get stolen because he had absolutely no idea who would dare lift something off his desk, wink wink nod nod, but some asking around had led the twins to the discovery that the janitor's twin sister had been kidnapped by Grindlewold, bound as a familiar, used, abused, then sent to Auschwitz and experimented on; she'd been dead three years when Dumbledore killed Grindlewold. She'd been ten at the time, and the experiment that killed her had involved transplanting most of her organs with those of an adult man, without bothering to use anaesthetics; over a period of a few days, her body had basically melted down.

Understandably enough, the foul-tempered little man had a serious chip on his shoulder about people who mistreated their familiars.

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**This ain't no slash fic neither.**

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This led the twins to need to sneak into Draco's room so as to interfere with his footwear, so they checked his location; this was about an hour after Dumbledore's hasty departure.

Draco was on sub-three, just heading downstairs on the route that would lead him to the Slytherin hangout, but their attention was distracted from plotting torment for weasels when they saw a dot marked 'Lector Grosse' not far from Draco's position, on the hall in which Harry, Ron and Hermione had encountered a certain Cerberus hound; a dot marked 'Fluffy' was nearby and not moving. Given that the 'Lector Grosse' dot was past the Cerberus hound and the hound's dot was still showing, it followed that somehow or another the dog was still alive.

The 'Lector Grosse' dot was moving slowly along one wall of the corridor. After a few moments, the dot moved through the wall and vanished; they lowered the reading to the same location on sub-four, failed to find him (but there was a notable square blank on the map) and tried the fifth sub-level, immediately hitting paydirt. 'Lector Grosse' was there and on the move; there was another dot about two hundred feet from his position marked 'Klunk', in the middle of a sizeable blank on the map.

The twins looked at each other for about two milliseconds, then George pocketed the PDA they used to access the map, and they bolted for Harry's room.

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**This is Top Dog.**

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Coming charging up the hall, the twins could make out Tara's voice coming from the other side of Harry's door; she was just saying, "-with the League."

They barged into the room, forgetting to knock; Harry whipped round and for a moment his E-Mag was aimed at Fred's head, then Harry relaxed with an annoyed noise and holstered the gun.

"Don't _do_ that to me, guys." He grumbled.

"Sorry." Fred said. "But we thought you'd want to know about this."

"What?" Harry doubtfully asked.

George tugged the palmtop out of his pocket, and showed it to Harry.

"So Quirrel chose now to make his run on the Stone; that makes sense, I figure Dumbledore's the final line of defence." Harry said with a nod. "It's all starting to add up; let's move out." Carla hastily stood up. Harry collected a bandolier of ammunition, put it on, selected what looked to be a variant on a Kenti grav rifle fitted with an underslung launcher and several tactical accessories, and Carla snatched up and hastily loaded a compact but deadly particle beam rifle.

Tara grinned, withdrawing her blaster and thumbing a new deuterium pellet into the breech. "Better to regret a mistake than to regret never having tried. Let's rock."

Harry gave her a doubtful look; she batted her eyelids at him, and he chuckled and offered her his arm, which she took with a toothsome grin.

"We'll finish our conversation later, in private, someplace we won't get redheads unexpectedly barging in." Harry told her; the twins had the decency to look embarrassed and Carla giggled, and then the five went rampaging down to the Gryffindor hangout in a tight bunch; here they found Hermione, Ron, Ben, and S'tarak'hai clustered in what had become known as the CTMA corner.

"It's showtime, people." Harry said. "Quirrel's going for the stone."

S'tarak'hai sprang to his feet with a stifled curse; the others weren't far behind him. He gave Tara a doubtful look, which she replied to with a steady glare, causing the big catman to sigh slightly and nod once in resigned acceptance.

And then they were off.

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**Disclaimer: Insulting evil overlords face-to-face could prove to be bad for your structural integrity. But if you can get away with it, it's worth a shot; they make really funny expressions when you fail to respect them.**

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**Top Dog: Enter the Fnords**

**Book 1: Harry Johnson and the Headmaster's Socks.**

**A Doghead13 / United Galaxies fanfic**

**Written & produced by Calum J 'Doghead13' Wallace**

**Brought to you by Hairy Scottish Git Productions, GMBH**

**This is not a drill.**

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**Chapter the Last: Angel with the Scabbed Wings**

**(In which a showdown occurs, and we wrap this book up)**

It didn't take them long to get down to sub-three; the door off the stairwell was hanging from one hinge, having obviously been kicked in. It had a sizeable dent from the kick, with a visible imprint of a boot sole; given that the door was armoured, Quirrel was presumably running some sort of cybernetic boosters. Harry extended his various cybernetic sensors as they entered; he, Carla, and S'tarak'hai swiftly scanned the corridor, tracking their rifles around.

"Looks clear." S'tarak'hai rumbled.

"Go." Harry commanded, and the three darted into the corridor with the others hard behind them. It didn't take them long to find Fluffy; the Cerberus hound was clearly dazed, and there was a discharged sonic stun grenade lying nearby. The three-headed mutt got one look at Harry and ran off yelping with his tail between his legs.

"What a cute doggie, here's the way down." Harry said, kicking a section of wall; it swung open to reveal a decidedly dark pit. He selected a cartridge from his bandolier, slotted it into the underslung launcher, and fired down the hole; the round proved to be a flare. The streak of actinic white light clearly illuminated the shaft, showing it to descend two stories; there was some kind of thick vegetation down the bottom, but none of the group could clearly see it.

"Slowfall?" Hermione suggested.

"That works." Harry told her, scooped Carla under his arm, and stepped off the edge.

The others followed him in a group, the two Kenti using their wings instead of the slowfall spells the others cast as they fell. Hermione would have landed on Harry, but he caught her and set her on her feet.

"The ground's moving, Master!" Carla warned. "Hey! Ow!"

"Crikey, something's got me feets!" Ben complained.

Harry flicked his rifle's tactical light on, illuminating the tangled vine-like growths that covered the floor; the stuff was writhing like bundles of snakes, and knotting itself round the legs of the group.

"What the fucking hell?"

"We've got a problem." Hermione said. "It's Devil's Snare, it's attracted to the cold and damp. We-"

"That's all I needed to know." Harry said, and blew fire out his nose.

The root cluster was instantly vaporised. A sizeable chunk of the weed caught fire; the rest of it wormed as far from the blaze as possible, leaving the gang no longer ensnared.

"-need to set fire to it." Hermione finished.

Harry idly torched the rest of it for good measures, then smirked.

"Works every time. Ha!"

S'tarak'hai nodded and shoved his hand flamer back into it's holster, and the two warriors headed straight for the door. This one was hanging open, revealing a tall room with a line of broomsticks stacked against the far wall beside the door; one was laying on the floor.

"Intriguing." S'tarak'hai sarcastically remarked and headed for the door, not sparing a glance for the cloud of winged keys that were flying around far above his head; the room had to reach right to sub-one from the height of it.

He gave the door a tremendous kick, then swore because it had completely failed to respond to the abuse.

"Hmm, not as simple as all that." Harry muttered.

"That's one tough door." S'tarak'hai said, sounding impressed.

"Great, I think we're going to have to catch the key." Hermione said, peering up at the keys. "I can see one that's got a crumpled wing, and it's the same colour as the lock."

"No we're not." Harry said, unearthing a small Allen key; he fiddled around in the lock with the Allen key for a few moments, then shrugged, pocketed it, and tugged out a bag of dirty grey powder, which he proceeded to stuff the lock full of. "Hmm, let's see if they factored this in."

"Quirrel's stopped moving." George warned; he had decided to keep watch on the map.

"What are you doing?" Hermione asked.

"Thermite." Harry said. "It's the number one universal skeleton key. Sticking spell to hold it in the place it'll do us the most good, and bingo. The lock seems to be partially electronic, so picking it the quiet way didn't work."

"Are you sure this'll work?" Ben asked.

"Only one way of finding out." Harry said with a shrug, completing his preparations. "If it doesn't, well, that's why I brought the launcher. Stand back." He spat a fine line of fire into the keyhole; the lock fizzed and spluttered, casting an actinic white light, and the door responded to Harry's nudge by swinging open a crack.

He, S'tarak'hai, Ben and Carla set up, then with a roar of "Go!" from the big catman, they went crashing through the door and into the next chamber.

This one was the biggest yet, and had a chequered floor; at the far end, a set of white statues that resembled life-size chessmen were set up in the traditional pre-game chess formation.

"What the heck are those?" Hermione asked.

"Golems from the look of it." Harry said.

"I guess we need to beat them at a game of chess or they'll have a go at us." Ron said. "It's a good thing I'm good at chess."

"Let's see if they're good against anti-armour weaponry." S'tarak'hai growled, and opened up with his grav rifle. Massive 28mm slugs sprayed out the barrel; the results when they hit the 'chess pieces' was a bit like a jackhammer hitting concrete. Harry promptly joined in, and the 'chessmen' were rapidly a scattered field of rubble.

"They're re-forming." Fred warned.

"Well, let's move." Harry snapped, and they headed for the door at the far end; Tara very calmly blasted the least damaged chessman (a pawn) several times in the chest with her sawn-off plasma gun on the way past.

They'd just closed the door behind themselves when a voice said, "Duh?" from round the corner that the passage turned. "Oo klubbed me? Duh. Klubbit, klubbit, klubbit, duh."

"Another Klub Klubber?" Harry grumbled. "They grow 'em on trees round here or something? Fuck sake."

Hermione went a bit pale.

"Duh? Oo sed dat?" a troll remarked, ambling round the corner. "Duh! 'Oomiez! Klubbit!"

S'tarak'hai shot the troll's club out of it's hands.

"Duh! Dey bust me klub! Ere! You izzn't a 'oomie. You iz furry."

"No shit." S'tarak'hai growled. "Move it or lose it, troll."

"Duh? Looze wot?"

"Your head."

"Duh, it's dere." The troll said, pointing at it's own nose. "Duh, you iz fik. Oi iz brainy, duh."

"I want to club myself." Ben told the troll in a very calm patient voice.

"Duh, klubbit." The troll said. It picked up the remnants of it's club and proceeded to bash itself over the head, knocking itself senseless.

"How did you do that?" Hermione asked, looking sincerely impressed.

"I just talked to it like goblins talk to trolls. How it works is, if you sound calm and patient enough, the troll thinks your voice is it's own thoughts." Ben said with a shrug. "They're kinda stupid that way."

"Oi iz brainy." The troll remarked, coming round. "Duh, klubbit." It then bashed itself again.

"Duh, me 'ed went klunk."

The CTMAers walked past the troll, most of them being sincerely what-the-fucked by the way it was sat there happily clubbing itself on the head.

"Duh, me 'ed went klunk agen." Bash

"Duh, it did it agen." Bash.

"Duh, dere it iz agen." This time the troll bashed itself sincerely harder, and returned to the land of unconsciousness with a stupid grin on it's face.

S'tarak'hai caught Hermione's disbelieving gaze and meaningfully rotated a finger against the side of his head.

"This is too easy." Harry stated as they darted into the next room. This one sported a low table, with a rack of bottles lined up and a handwritten note.

Just as the last of the group (Fred) had entered, there was a thump and sheets of fire erupted, blocking both doorways.

"Shit!" S'tarak'hai snapped.

Hermione went to pick up the note, but Harry smacked her hand away.

"Ow! What'd you do that for?"

"Chances are that thing's trapped." Harry told her. "First rule of entering an AOE you don't know; don't touch anything you haven't positively identified as harmless. You'll live longer that way." He critically examined the note. "Hmm, looks like we've got a logic puzzle on our hands. That bottle contains the substance that'll take us onward; that one contains the way back." He picked up the bottle that he claimed would lead on, and examined it. "There's only enough for one dose. In a moment, I'm going to take it. S'tarak'hai, Ben, you two stay here. Be ready to ambush anyone who comes out. The rest of you, take some of the return bottle and go get the staff. Hopefully we've tripped some alarm spells and the old fart should be on his way back; if he's not here, get Setsuna and Urd. Oh, and Granger? Make sure you leave enough of that return potion for three."

"Three?" Hermione asked. "Isn't there four people who need it?"

Harry shook his head.

"This is war, Hermione. Either I come out of there, or Quirrel does, at which point Ben and Catboy will avenge me. Ready?"

Everyone nodded warily. Harry grinned at the bottle he was holding, and handed the return bottle to Hermione.

"Bottoms up!" he declared, and necked the onwards bottle. "Wish me luck."

And then he darted silently through the flames and into the room beyond.

Hermione took a drink of the return bottle and handed it on, a feeling of dread growing in the back of her mind.

What would she do if Harry died?

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Scanning the room he'd arrived in, Harry noted two things. Firstly, Quirrel was stood in front of a large stand-up mirror and muttering.

He took a bead on Quirrel, but just as he squeezed the trigger, the man noticed him and moved with the sort of speed that demonstrated he was running a pretty serious cybernetic rig; he dived left and, without a sound, fired two spells at Harry. Both of them were obviously high-end combat craft, because they moved too fast for Harry to get out the way, even though his reflex boosters were set to full power; he estimated them to have just clipped about Mach Six as the wall exploded from the abuse of the dozen 28mm-calibre hunks of ceramic-jacketed lead Harry had fired, blasting huge craters, spitting a shower of rubble across the room, and just missing the mirror.

Then Harry found himself trussed up like a chicken, his grav rifle flying across the room and getting snatched out the air by Quirrel; Harry pitched over sideways with a curse. He reckognised the spells; Expelliarmus and Incarcerous. A classic non-lethal swift-neutralisation pair.

He wasn't dealing with some jumped-up amateur; only a pro would first off be able to silent-cast that combo so fast, and second off be able to dodge that well.

An experimental yank demonstrated that he wasn't going to be snapping the conjured ropes any time soon; he made a mental note to hassle the people he had mentally labelled the Technological Trio (Washuu Hakubi, Skuld Wodensdotter, and Agatha Heterodyne) concerning an upgrade, sometime real soon. Like as soon as he got out of this particular mess. Get those three together for a jamming session and they did incredible work, but getting them to concentrate on the right project was a pain in the ass.

"What the Hell have they been feeding you, Klingon Chow?" He complained, recalculating everything and cursing himself for underestimating Quirrel as he did so; the only place underestimating the enemy ever led anyone is a bodybag. "Note to self; must get a skull gun."

"Imperial Atlantean Inquisition, Branch 12." Quirrel smugly said, pulling his sleeve up to reveal a New Atlantean Special Forces tattoo. "I'm enough to handle some degenerate blood traitor any day!"

"So that'll be why you didn't show much of anything on the magnetic anomaly detector, you're using retroviral boosters, aren't you? Bet you think you're real clever, Lector Grosse." Harry grumbled, increasingly annoyed with himself. Not only did he get taken out like an amateur, he was taken out like an amateur by some bigoted Nalfer prick. How embarrassing. A remark Setsuna had made when they were making their plans the previous June suddenly made an annoying amount of sense; the little brat never did give you all the information. Bitch.

He had to remember to give her a stern talking to next time he saw her, probably smack her backside and ground her for a while, she needed a reminder that being a good girl and not screwing your father around is a prudent move when said father happens to be a maniacal and heavily cyborged weredragon Sith Knight.

"I'll find out how you know my name later." The man who had called himself Quirrel snapped.

"The fuck you will, fucking Nalfer." Harry sneered. "So tell me, is Grosse a reference to your piss-ant attitude or is it overcompensating for your total lack of balls?"

"So speaks the genetic deviant." 'Quirrel' snarled. "You dirt ought to learnt to respect the _true_ masters of the universe!"

"When I can kill you by breathing on you?"

"You wish, _animal_." 'Quirrel' snapped. "I had the foresight to pack some top of the line fireproofing in my little bag of tricks – your halitosis won't do anything to me!"

"Might as well give it a try." Harry said, and exhaled as hard as he could; there was an earth-shaking thump as his breath detonated into a roaring jet of white-hot plasma, but much to his disgust it merely succeeded in burning Quirrel's eyebrows off, though admittedly it did slag part of the ceiling. "Oh well, guess that's _another_ whole roast boar on tonight's midnight snack menu."

"You'll never live to eat it!" Quirrel snapped, picking up Harry's A-DRK.

"Use your own gun retard, mine's got an auraprint safety." Harry remarked. Quirrel glared at him, tried the trigger, and ditched the grav rifle. "Geez, can't you even treat a nice gun with a bit of respect? Twerp."

Quirrel shrugged and produced a New Atlantean bolt pistol. Harry smugly omitted to point out how Nalfer bolt ammunition was less powerful than the Old Atlantean real deal and therefore would have trouble penetrating his cybernetically armoured hide. "Like I said; no balls."

"Prepare to die, heretic!"

"Silence, fool!" a voice hissed from round the back of Quirrel's head; the man froze, dropped the gun (which went off when it hit the floor, leaving a small crater in one wall) and started to turn his head away from Harry. He then kept turning it, with a grinding and crunching of joints, until it was facing directly backwards.

"That was disgusting in Trainspotting, and it's just as disgusting in real life. Exorcist much?" Harry complained.

Grosse lifted the turban off.

"Dude, there's no gentle way to break this to you; you've got this horrible lizardy growth on the back of your head." Harry said, doing a remarkable job of faking compassion. "It looks something like an Argonian cultist of Nurgle, or maybe a hideously malformed Murloc."

Suffice to say, that was not the reception Voldemort had expected.

"Crucio!" he snarled, dropping the turban.

Harry rolled his eyes.

"I've got two words for you, you stupid lizardy bastard." He said, completely unperturbed by the torture spell. "Pain Editors; I've got my sense of pain switched off, so your favourite curse is like trying to set fire to a salamander."

"You're pretty impressive, Potter." Voldemort remarked, disappointedly stopping Cruciatusing at Harry since it was a total waste of time and energy. "I could use a man of your ingenuity. You and I should join forces; together we could establish a rule over this galaxy that would last ten thousand years! What do you say?"

"Me? Work with a loser like you?" Harry scoffed. "Kiss my ass, lizard-lips."

"What?" Voldemort hissed, taken aback.

"I said, kiss my ass." Harry snapped. "Are you deaf as well as ugly? Go on – pucker up those lizardy lips and give me a smooch right on my ass. The day I work with a loser like you is the day you know Hela's opened a skating rink."

"What do you mean, 'loser'?" Voldemort spluttered, dearly wishing he could effectively Cruciatus the little jerk. "I have gone further down the road to immortality than any other man!"

"I find that highly unlikely considering how my daughter is over six billion years old." Harry pointed out.

"And she was born to it." Voldemort riposted. "Whereas I have snatched immortality from the hands of the vile gods who cursed all humans to die slowly over a period of sixty or so years!"

"What I want to know is why you didn't, I dunno, just gobble some Methuselah fish, get a few regeneration boosters, bind a few dozen Amerai as familiars, and find a nice quiet feral world in a peaceful sector to be the invincible overlord of." Harry said. "That's way more reliable than farting around chopping your soul into chunks, talk about stupid things to do. Horacruxes were a bad idea when the Hardaks invented them and they're still a bad idea today. I mean, look at you now, all so high and fucking mighty, and you're an ugly lizardy face stuck to the back of a Nalfer prick's head; you think that's so fucking impressive? What a loser. You know Tommy, you were a loser in the orphanage, you were a loser when my forehead turned you into a wet red smear, and you're still a loser today. "

"Once I disable your pain editors I am going to enjoy finding out how you know these things, you little snot." Voldemort snarled.

"Department 48, you know, Thousand Kingdoms Royal Family Security, that's how." Harry said, rolling his eyes. "They identified you as the son of Thomas Daniel Riddle the Second and Merope Adriane Gaunt, and had agents interview the other former occupants of a certain orphanage. I did them a little favour not so long ago, they gave me a copy of their report on you and it's up to their usual standards. Hey, mind telling me where you got the Voldemort monicker?"

"An anagram, actually." Voldemort said, thrown a little off track and slightly disappointed at the lack of an excuse to torture Harry; he gestured, and the words 'Tom Marvolo Riddle' appeared in the air; another gesture and the letters reassembled themselves into 'I Am Lord Voldemort'.

"Which demonstrates that you dig crap anagrams." Harry said with a nod. "I opened a phone book at a random page and used the first name I saw, and every time I had to ditch an identity I did the same again. You wouldn't believe the number of Harold Potter's in this country, I kept getting 'P' surnames back when, that name didn't want to go away. Hey, mind telling me something? How'd you avoid the rifling on Grosse's rifle matching that slug I dug out of the unicorn? Let me guess, you swapped barrels?"

"Indeed." Voldemort said with a smirk. "My servant has a small number of elderly barrels for his Lee-Enfield Number 4, and one good barrel; the one that normally inhabits the weapon's stock. Of course, when one must terminate a protected animal, one does what one must to avoid forensic identification of one's equipment, and exchanging the barrel is a simple method of doing so. But we are getting distracted. I came here for a purpose, and you will assist me in it whether you want to or not." He grabbed Harry by the scruff of the neck. "Because of what that meddling redstick pulled, this would normally burn me. Fortunate that I thought to bring gloves, isn't it?"

He held Harry up so he was facing the mirror.

"Tell me what you see." He commanded.

"Oh. My. God." Harry said.

"What?" Voldemort hissed. "What do you see?"

"Dear Santa, I know just what I'd like for next Christmas!"

"What do you see?" Voldemort repeated.

"I see guns,_ lots_ of guns, lots and lots and lots of yippie kye yay motherfucker guns!" Harry ranted. "Guns guns guns! On the first day of Christmas my true love sent to me guns, Harley-Davidson motorbikes, guns guns guns, and a babe on a chain. Guuuuuuuuuns gimme gimme gimme guns guns guns!"

"I think he's snapped." Said 'Quirrel's' voice from round the back. "Happens all the time, those degenerates can't handle knowledge of their inferiority."

"I love guns, guns guns guns!" Harry raved. "Lots of guns, guns guns guns! Big bad guns, guns guns guns! I want guns, guns guns guns! Gimme more guns, guns guns guns! Naaaaaaaarf!"

Voldemort swung him away from the mirror and peered bemusedly at him.

"Bang, bang, you're dead, fifty bullets in your head!" Harry informed him. "Poit!"

Voldemort let go of him; he fell over with a meaty thud.

"I am a robot, I come from outer space!" Harry chanted from the floor. "You never see me smile coz you cannae see me face! I do not need a weapon, coz I'm as hard as nails! I live inside my armour; I got it from the snails!"

"Shut up." Voldemort hissed, turning his attention to the mirror and leaving a sincerely bemused 'Quirrel' to watch out the back.

"In the grim darkness of last week there is only wharf!"

Voldemort was reduced to furiously kicking Harry in the head. And then something unexpected happened; the flames vanished with a dull 'fthwap', revealing a tiny blonde with oddly protruding silver eyes, a Siberian tigress the size of a large motorbike, a hulking nine-foot Kenti landwarrior and a whackball Jedi from New Australia.

"Sic stutterbunny." Luna said. Katarina leapt, roaring.

"WURT WURT WURT!" Ben agreed, charging with a lightsabre in one hand and an E-Mag in the other.

S'tarak'hai said nothing, just rolled into the room and came up in a half crouch. However, Voldemort was too fast for the trio of attackers; a disarming hex slammed into the big catman, sending his grav rifle spinning across the room, rapidly followed by the same ensnaring curse as Quirrel had used on Harry; Voldemort moved like a ferret on pixie sticks, ducking under the hail of E-Mag shells Ben sent his way, and shot him in the chest with a blasting hex; he was flung backwards, hitting the wall with a meaty thud and a cry of "Crikey me spleen!" then the same ensnarement curse had him.; Katarina was rapidly ensnared by another repetition of the ensnarement curse.

"Kess!" S'tarak'hai snarled, which is very rude in Kentare.

But all this had given Luna time enough to do one fairly simple thing while VoldieQuirrel was involved with the greater threats; she dispelled the spell holding Harry via a very simple Finite Incantum, whereupon he came exploding off the ground like a berserk jack-in-the-box, cranking up his estimates of Quirrel a couple more notches as he went.

The man's reflexes were like greased lightning – there were very few people who'd be able to take out S'tarak'hai like that, not even taking into account the way he'd actually seen Ben's bullets coming and ducked underneath them; he'd fired off those spells so fast they sounded like one long casting. The only people who had access to retroviral cybernetics _that_ hot were indeed the New Atlantean Inquisition. However, Harry's physical performance booster cybernetics were composed of billions upon billions of robots, each the size of a human's blood cell, bonded to the insides of his body so thickly that even his hair could set off an airport metal detector; and nanocybernetics were inherently faster than the retroviral kind. There is only so much that RNA or DNA can do; in some cases that can be a hell of a lot (for example, Hermione, or of course Quirrel's bio-boosters) but Harry was running cybernetics that had been purpose-built for him by three of the absolute finest technologists in known space and time. With his cybernetics on full boost, Harry had once picked up a seventy-ton railway locomotive and thrown it a quarter of a mile.

Considering Harry had been laying less than six feet from VoldieQuirrel, the possessed New Atlantean didn't have enough time to blink, never mind dodge; three paper-thin metallic-looking claws erupted bloodily from between Harry's knuckles and there was a noise like a horrific set of scissors as he swung at Quirrel, then a thud as Quirrel's head went bouncing across the room and rolled off behind a pillar, and the rest of Quirrel tipped over backwards; the instantly dead man's neck had been sliced clean through in three places.

The blades slid back into Harry's arm, leaving the back of his hand covered in blood in a way that would have proved very familiar to Hermione and Ron; he contemplated the corpse for a moment.

"You were good, but not good enough." He told the headless corpse. "Thanks, Luna. Ben, catboy; good to see you. Impressive entrance."

"Yeah yeah, yuk it up Sex Bomb Johnson." The big catman growled as Luna freed him. "Looks like you didn't fare much better." He immediately went to assist Ben, who was bitterly complaining about having thrown his back out; S'tarak'hai of course showed his roots as a soldier by covering Quirrel's body with his grav rifle as he dispelled Ben's bonds.

But Harry's attention was now centred upon the shadowy version of Voldemort that was hovering over the beheaded corpse.

"Potter you bastard!" the spectre hissed. Luna started freeing the rather annoyed tigress.

"You made a serious fucking mistake when you attacked Godric's Hollow, Tommy." Harry snarled. "Like to know what it was? _You fucked with the wrong people_. You're a fucking moron, Tom. And you wanna know what I do to morons who piss me off? I make them wish I'd just shot them."

"Big words, Potter." The spirit snarled, glancing around; there was nobody in here he could safely possess. Trying for Harry would be a suicidal move, Kenti soldiers had superb mental defence training, possessing a madwoman would be bad for his mind (which was about all he currently had) and possessing someone's familiar would be pretty much number one on the list of Really Bad Ideas. By this time, S'tarak'hai and Ben had recovered their weapons, Katarina had recovered her aplomb, and Luna was contemplating her navel.

"You like the lizardy look, don't you?" Harry sneered. "Well I'm going to show you exactly what you're dealing with. Get a load of this little number."

His body swelled up, gaining six feet of height and a load of muscle; his skin took on a scaly cast, his face punched forwards, a set of massive wings erupted from his back, and a tail lashed behind him.

Out of everyone in the room, only S'tarak'hai had seen this for real before; the so-called battle form of an Arcadian-cross weredragon. Over twelve feet tall and weighing something in the region of three metric tons, almost all of that being raw muscle, it made him look like a humanoid version of a black dragon, with the odd addition of his usual mane of wild blue-black hair. His clothes had expanded, crossbelts and gunbelt included; they were obviously enchanted to shift forms with him. A look of unashamed naked lust flashed across Luna's face before she schooled it into her usual blank expression.

"How'd you like this puppy, motherfucker?" Harry growled. His voice had dropped a couple octaves in the transformation, making it a gravely snarl much like an annoyed S'tarak'hai; Luna emitted a noise that sounded like 'Meep' and crossed her legs, earning herself a disconcerted look from a certain large catman.

"Get a fucking move on and grow yourself a new body, Tommy-boy." Harry continued. "Because when you've done that I'm going to track you down, I'm going to find you, beat you like the little bitch you are, bugger you to death with my mighty dragon man-meats, rip off your head, take a shit down your neck, bind your soul into a vibrator dildo, lend it to the ugliest she-troll in Ogrimmar for sixty years, deep-six it down a black hole, bury what's left of you in a Kendarat cesspit, and wipe your bumchums off the face of the galaxy for a grand finale. Now get the fuck out of here." There was a pop and a relieved sigh as Ben clicked his back.

"You're gonna get yours, Potter." The spectre hissed, and went racing off through a wall, fading out of visibility as it went.

"Okay, Old Tom Mouldy just won the award for the least original line of the millennium. Hopefully that's the last we'll see of that little prick." Harry said, slumping back against the wall and into his human form. "What a fucking day… You're a real piece of work, Lovegood."

"My word!" said a completely unexpected voice; Harry rolled left and S'tarak'hai rolled right, both landing in crouches with their weapons aimed at the source of the voice, while Ben pulled and lit his lightsabre and Katarina spun round with a roar, all before they'd had time to recognise it. Luna just blinked twice, opened her mouth, and belched.

Albus Dumbledore bemusedly contemplated grav rifles and beam blade.

"I think you can put those away." He said, seemingly completely unfazed by staring down the business end of some of the galaxy's deadliest military-issue small arms. Katarina relaxed and ambled over to him, where he absently patted her head while contemplating the headless corpse that was all that was left of 'Quirrel', and the huge spray of blood Harry's attack had launched across the room. He slowly shook his head.

"Good grief." He said. "You sure know how to make a mess."

"Now you see why it was vitally important that I was here this year." Luna remarked, wandering over and leaning against Katarina, who was now purring like a Lamborghini.

"Oh, it's you." S'tarak'hai said. "Look, son. Don't creep up on combat veterans who're holding loaded assault weapons, it could get you turned into as much of a grease smear as that Quirrel character." There was a double click as he and Harry safed their grav rifles and a sucking sort of hiss as Ben deactivated his sabre.

"That was Mycroft? Where the devil has his head gone…? Oh well, there goes another Assault Magecraft tutor. At least that explains exactly what's been going on this year."

"Don't give me that you stupid fuck, it was Quirrel blowing away unicorns, he was playing the barrel-swapping game, and I'd be willing to bet good money he's got an HK-40 stashed in his digs." Harry snapped. "Turns out that son-of-a-bitch was a Nalfer by the name of Lector Grosse and he had a spirit possessing him I happen to fucking _recognise_; Mouldyshorts himself. Don't try telling me all that shit-ton of detection equipment in your damn office didn't pick **that** up."

"I _told_ you he was an evil stutterbunny." Luna agreed.

Dumbledore nodded.

"Indeed. However, there is a large difference between knowing something is there and knowing what and where it is. I was aware there was a heavy concentration of necromantic energy within this building, but this is a **big** building with a _lot_ of hiding places and there are areas that have not been seen in _millennia_. And, as it happens, a ghost produces a fair old concentration of necromantic energy; likewise, we have six undead students at present, five vampires and a revenant. Oh well, I suppose my trap didn't work and I'll have to get the house elves to break out the mops."

"Trap?" S'tarak'hai growled.

Dumbledore nodded casually.

"Precisely. I set up a little booby-trap that would prevent anyone who broke in from leaving without assistance."

"You stupid piece of shit." Harry spat, standing up. "I **knew** it was too fucking easy to find out where that damn rock supposedly was. What'd you have done if we hadn't sent the others back to get help? Nodded smugly that your trap worked and forgotten about it in a fit of fucking senility?"

"It's okay, Harry. I was perfectly aware you were here." Luna said. "And I knew how to open the trap. Albus didn't bind the spells to himself, he simply set it up so he was the only one who knew how to circumvent them, but I premembered how to do it."

"It was a sound plan; I would have been proud of a plan like that." S'tarak'hai remarked, nodding to Dumbledore.

"Catboy's right mate, we're the daft bastards who got ourselves involved in this shit." Ben agreed.

"So… where _is_ the Philosopher's Stone anyway?" Harry asked, calming down a bit and looking around the room as he made a mental note that he needed to have a very serious discussion with Luna sooner rather than later. Right after he'd contacted the Technological Trio and given Setsuna a telling-off. His to-do list was mushrooming alarmingly.

Dumbledore smirked.

Neither Harry nor S'tarak'hai had ever expected to see the man smirk, but there it was.

"In the safest place in this school." Dumbledore said, his smirk getting bigger.

"Well, don't keep us in suspense." Harry snapped.

"It's in the bottom of my sock drawer." Dumbledore told him.

S'tarak'hai stared at the man for several seconds, then burst out laughing.

"You mean to say," he chortled, "This was all an elaborate _bluff_?"

Dumbledore smirked even wider and nodded.

"Bingo. I made a big production of concealing it down here; the entire staff knew about it, for the simple reason that I was fairly certain I had at least one mole in the staff. However, I had palmed it when I pretended to insert it into the Mirror of Erised, and slipped it into my pocket."

"Crikey, nice one mate!"

"Damn you're good!" S'tarak'hai said, then exploded into a peal of laughter, rapidly joined by Dumbledore and Luna then Harry, who had suddenly seen the funny side; Ben grinned a bit and shook his head.

At that moment, the rest of the CTMA joined them.

"Jesus Christ!" Fred remarked, seeing what was left of 'Quirrel'. "What a mess!"

"I think I'm gonna puke." Ron said, looking a bit green.

"Er, who was that?" Hermione asked.

"Quirrel." S'tarak'hai said. "His head is behind that pillar if you want it."

"Oh. Oh, _God_. You didn't have to go **that** far." Hermione complained.

"Stutterbunny faw down go boom." George remarked.

"Crikey mate, nice splatter pattern." Bruce put in.

"Christ." Harry muttered. "Let's get the fuck out of this hole, it's giving me the heebie-jeebies." He turned to what was left of 'Quirrel'. "So long, fuckpile. Hey, Dumbledore? Might be an idea to not hire any more New Atlantean Inquisitors as staff, they're a pain to get rid of." Tara stifled a gasp.

S'tarak'hai gave Harry a worried look; he mouthed 'Later' in Kentare. The hulking catman nodded, and headed for the exit with the rest of the CTMA following him.

Dumbledore retrieved Quirrel's head, contemplated it for a moment, sighed, and ditched it beside the rest of the dead man.

"What a terrible waste." He muttered.

At least Klunk had survived the experience; he was a nice enough bloke for an insanely violent troll.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"We've got to talk, Lovegood."

Luna looked up from her book; there was Harry. She was faintly startled as she hadn't told her where her room was, but then she figured he'd probably used the Map.

"I suppose we do." Luna said, and gestured at the sofa. "Have somewhere to sit." She picked up a notebook and handed it to him as he sat down.

"I believe this is what you are looking for." She said. "I wrote it in Old Arcadian High Draconic, the west continent form, for security purposes; I hope you don't mind."

"Luna, that's a very nearly extinct language; there are exactly five people in known space who speak west continent High Draconic. Where the Hell did you learn it?"

Luna smiled brightly at him.

"You'll teach me in a few years." She said.

"I take it you're one of those people with two-way memories?" Harry checked.

Luna smiled and shook her head.

"The word you are looking for is _thunorg_." She said. "I do indeed have a memory that works into the future as well as into the past, but I do not share the fate of Merlin; I do not see a fixed future, I see many possible futures, and I often try to influence events to go the way of the future I choose."

"I sometimes think the women in my life are conspiring to manipulate me into becoming a hero." Harry grumbled. "That'd be a pain in the arse, heroing doesn't pay so good."

Luna smiled dreamily at him.

"I can only speak for myself with true certainty, but I have to say that in my case I wouldn't want you any way but how you are. Heroes tend to do silly things like being chivalric and not killing captured enemies when what we need – what I need – is someone who's more likely to shove the loud end of his gun into the bad guy's mouth, say 'So long, bitch-tits' and pull the trigger. I think you're that someone."

"You're a real piece of work, Lovegood." Harry said with a shake of his head. "You're one Hell of a weapon, you know that? I need to make sure you stay in the right hands."

"Hmm, you really do, don't you?" Luna analytically remarked, scratching her head. "Are you going to do it the traditional dragon way?"

"Traditional dragon way?" Harry asked, cocking his head. He liked the sound of where this seemed to be going; Luna was cute.

"Yes, you know, swooping down and carrying me off to durance vile in your lair up in the mountains." Luna said. "It's a good thing your skin is hard enough to shatter swords, isn't it? That way boring old knights in shiny armour can't rescue me, I think dragons are much more fun than knights, especially when they're superpowered cyborg weredragons with lots of big guns and this air of danger and that hair I just want to rake my hands through and those wonderful eyes full of mystery and secrets and pain…"

Harry gave her a slightly cockeyed look.

"Well, I'm afraid I don't have a lair up in the mountains." He said. "But I've got a _really_ nice mansion in the R'harash'gai't'rath palace district; will that do? And I don't have much truck with the durance vile thing, but I've got a lot of spare bedrooms if they'll do the trick."

"Well, I'll think about it." Luna said, then broke down giggling. Harry grinned at her and waggled his eyebrows, which didn't help; he then cracked up laughing at himself for a bit.

Somewhat more cheerful for the laughter, the two subsided.

"I'm getting awfully distracted." Luna said. "Sexy men are really distracting, you know that don't you? But anyway, I need you to tell me about everything that happened down there so I can premember about it last August, I had to go on a vital ninja mission to change the Collegium admission list, you see."

So Harry did. He went into detail, noting things like the exact time in milliseconds between his stepping through the flames and 'Quirrel' throwing the ensnarement spell at him. He got Luna to break down in giggle fits over several of the things he'd said to Voldemort. When they arrived at the point where Harry had been hauled in front of the mirror, Luna frowned through the description of the conversation.

"Harry, what did you _really_ see in the mirror?" she asked.

"Guns." Harry said, his eyes going unfocused and a faint trail of drool inching it's way down his chin as he grinned like a rabid lunatic. "_Lots_ of guns. Oh, and girls. And motorbikes. But mostly _guns_."

"Haven't you already got lots of guns?" Luna asked.

Harry firmly shook his head.

"I have sixteen thousand nine hundred and eighty-five guns; it's the beginning of a modest collection." He said. "I really need to get an Ultramar-pattern bolter, it's the only base model of Space Marine bolter I'm missing, and I'd love to get my hands on a Wehrmacht venom cannon, they kick ass, and I'm missing three marks of A-DRK grav rifle, and I've only got two Naruni plasma cartridge weapons, and… shit, there are enough models of gun in this galaxy alone that I could collect a trillion different guns and _still_ have **glaring** holes in my collection. If it was _lots_ of guns, I'd need a capital-class freighter to transport them. Anyway, at that point I recited a bit of Dudley's poetry at Old Tommy, and you and cat-boy came barging in. Figure you know the rest."

"How do you and S'tarak'hai's reflexes compare?" Luna asked.

"At full boost I can pull a trigger sixty times a second." Harry told her. "With most guns, the gun itself can't keep up. S'tarak'hai is more strength than speed – he can just break forty trigger pulls per second. But then, I'm running a set of custom-made boosters while he's got the mass-production Special Forces type." He swung to his feet. "I'd better get moving. See you in the morning."

"Yes, I'll see you tomorrow." Luna said, and Harry left.

She slumped back with a sigh, staring at the ceiling.

"The fate of Pandora." she muttered. "I have opened that box with my own two hands, and now no power in this universe or any other can seal it again… but maybe there really _is_ hope at the bottom of all this."

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As Harry read, his expression darkened, until there was a look of blank unreasoning fury on his face; then that faded out into a demonic smile.

"Very good, Luna." He murmured. "Oh very good… you are evil, girl. Plain evil; I love it."

"What's that?" Hermione asked.

Harry glanced at the notebook and let out a low chuckle; he noted that the light had been out in Dumbledore's room for about twenty minutes now.

"Let's just say that, in my little disagreement with Tommy the Boy, this little red book is the most powerful weapon in the galaxy." He said, snapped it shut, and pocketed it. "I'll have to change some details of my plan, but what the hell; no plan ever survives contact with the enemy as the saying goes. Well, no enemy is going to survive contact with this plan. We are going to reshape magi society, you and I. The Nile floods must come to renew the land, or the crops won't grow and the people will starve. It's time the rain came to wash away the dirt that's built up over the last fifty thousand years; the next couple of decades are going to be Hell on wheels, but I promise you this; you _will_ live to see a better tomorrow. Well, I gotta get some shut-eye; you'd better head to bed too."

Hermione nodded and departed, recognising the request for privacy as what it was. As soon as the door was closed, Harry sprung into action; he threw the pair of newly-fitted deadbolts on his door, got his pixie's cage down, opened it up, and poked the pixie awake.

"Wake up, squirt. You've got a job to do."

The pixie sat up and made a questioning noise; then she saw the unhealthy gleam in her master's eyes and hastily sprang to her feet. She'd long ago learned to be quiet and attentive when he got that look on his face.

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The next morning on the way to breakfast, walking side by side with Harry on their way back from the firing range, Hermione was startled to see Dumbledore coming down the hall towards them.

"Good morning, Harry." Dumbledore said, stopping walking.

"Good morning, Albus." Harry replied.

"I'm not going to ask what you want with it." Dumbledore remarked. "Instead, I'll just say, please be extremely careful, both with storage security and any buyers; the end result of it getting into the wrong hands could be beyond merely horrific and into the regions of apocalyptic."

"Nice piece of deduction." Harry remarked.

"It's elementary." Dumbledore said with a shrug. "The other three didn't have an opportunity in the time between my checking it late last night and this morning when I discovered it had gone; that leaves a rather limited number of suspects, only one of whom knew it was there."

"I see." Harry said. "Just so you know, I don't intend to sell. It's too mind-bogglingly useful to part with it, and in fact it's central to my plans for getting rid of a certain mouldy old lizard-faced prick."

"Glad to hear it." Dumbledore replied. "Just be careful, Harry."

"I'm always careful." Harry told him.

"Good." Dumbledore said, and carried on walking.

"What was that about?" Hermione asked.

Harry smirked.

"Oh, just a nifty toy I got hold of the other day." He said.

Hermione gave him a puzzled look, noting that he'd been looking exceptionally smug all morning.

Oh well, he'd probably tell her eventually.

Breakfast proceeded as usual, with the CTMA laughing at the dozens of rumours related to the assorted bangs that had echoed through the guts of the school the previous night; the only interruption was when Harry went over to the staff table, said a few terse words to Setsuna in a sotto voice, and returned to his seat; nobody missed that the beautiful green-haired tutor had gone rather pale as Harry spoke.

And then they got back to their usual weekend activities.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Dumbledore sighed. Another dead-end, and the board didn't have a lot of patience; they'd given him until Monday to find a replacement Assault Magecraft tutor, and then they'd send in Lucius bloody Malfoy to severely screw the job up. Dumbledore had an Assault Magecraft tutor for the next school year who would hopefully wind up hoist by his own petard, but not for the remaining months of this one.

A throat being cleared nearly made him knock his chair over with fright.

Looking up, he found a face from his past stood there smirking at him.

"Hello, Albus." The man said. "Heard you needed a temporary Assault Magecraft tutor."

"John!"

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A knock sounded on Harry's door. He and Hermione both looked up from where they were both cleaning guns.

"Enter." Harry called, and the door opened, admitting a shame-faced Setsuna Meiuu.

"Dad…" she said in a small voice.

Harry coolly contemplated Setsuna for a long moment.

"I am disappointed." He said. She gulped. "I am grounding you for two months, young lady. You are permitted to leave your quarters for classes, meals, and any staff meetings. At all other times, you will remain in your room and not attempt to contact anyone; your duties at the Gates will be fulfilled by a company of Warlord titans, which you will arrange immediately. You are not permitted to speak outside of work, and you are not allowed to read or write outside of work. You will instead spend your time considering your priorities and the wisdom of being honest to your father. And Setsuna? If you screw up like this again, I will be angry."

Setsuna nodded shakily.

"Now come here." Harry commanded. She did; he very calmly bent her over his knee, pulled her shorts and knickers down, and proceeded to spank her until her backside was one big bruise.

"Now go to your room." Harry commanded, and she beat a hasty retreat, pulling her shorts up as she went.

Harry watched her go, and sighed.

"Bloody kids."

Hermione stared blankly at him, unable to believe her eyes; her brain had completely locked up because she'd just realised that Harry dominated his daughter's life to the exact same degree that he dominated the life of Hermione Allison Granger. Both of them's universe was entirely centred on a certain weredragon.

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The next Wednesday on arriving at the Assault Magecraft classroom, Hermione found herself starting to wonder whether there was going to be a teacher turn up. Quirrel's stuff had been cleaned out, without anything to replace it, but the class hadn't been cancelled.

Just as she had got done thinking all that, there was a snap; a ragged blue rectangle of sizzling energy appeared in the middle of the room, sending the nearby Hufflepuffs scrambling out the way, and a man stepped out. This man was about five foot eight with long mouse-brown hair in a ponytail, and was dressed in high boots and trenchcoat with cargo trousers and a battered check shirt underneath; he had suspicious bulges right where shoulder holsters would be, and a pair of silver-plated Desert Eagles holstered on his belt.

And he'd just Gated into the middle of Hogwarts. A place that had blocks on almost all forms of teleportation enforced by the strongest wards in known space; the only ones that would work were the specific extremely esoteric model of matter transmitter used to move food from kitchens to Great Hall, or of course a subspace door.

And he was showing no signs of visible exertion.

His eyes scanned the students for a moment, and then he smirked slightly.

"Well what a rag-tag bunch." He said. "For fuck sake Malfoy, loosen that tie a bit, looks like the bloody thing's strangling you. Come on you lot, slouch a bit, you're making me uncomfortable. Anyway, a certain old student of mine who might just run this old pile of rocks asked me to fill in for a certain stuttering Nalfer prick who might just have been relieved of his resoundingly empty head. We live in a dangerous universe, and it's on the cusp of becoming a whole load more dangerous. Big things are happening not too far from here, and there's a crunch coming in the Clanspace power structure. In the coming years, we will see changes that will shake this galaxy. That is inevitability right there; and it is desirable. What we call known space has become fat and indolent; change is needed before that indolence drags us down into a pit we could never escape. Unfortunately, all that means that all Hell is very shortly going to break loose; that's where this course comes in. It's time to quit buggering around with the details and learn the fun stuff; my name's Jonathon Julian Kirth, and I'm going to teach you lot how to blow shit up."

Hermione noted the number of bugged-out eyes and slack jaws around her, and figured that this meant something.

The uncharacteristic massive grins on the faces of Harry and S'tarak'hai also probably had some sort of meaning. Hermione resolved to ask Harry later.

The class proved to be very different from Quirrel's 'teaching'. Whoever Kirth was, he was an exceptional teacher and extremely violent; he got them started on what he called 'Your basic all-purpose attack spell', the Electron Ram, which proved to be able to blow a car in half, or put a good-sized hole in a Hogwarts interior wall for that matter. They blew a lot of things up.

"Who _is_ this Kirth guy?" Hermione asked as they were leaving the class.

Harry snorted.

"He's a wage-mage, works for the Amerai Clan Saotome." He said. "Nobody seems to know how old he is or where he's originally from, but he's been around for a long time. What most people don't know is he's one of Lord Akira Saotome's most trusted advisors."

"So, how powerful is he?"

"Ever heard of the Minoans?" Harry asked. Hermione nodded, looking slightly offended at the thought she wouldn't, so he chuckled at her expression and continued. "Let's put it this way. The reason their civilisation disappeared is because they fucked with John Kirth once too often."

"I thought it was a volcano." Hermione said.

Harry smirked. "Nope, it was a hyped-up Ra Tilt fired straight down from thirty-five thousand feet into their capital city, boring a hole about fifty feet across in Earth's crust and triggering off one of the most powerful volcanic explosions since humans got around to evolving. Nice bang."

"I take it you're a fan?"

Harry shrugged. "You just saw a sample of his combat style. That's why I like the guy; he doesn't bugger around, he applies an Electron Ram to the problem. He's right, you know; who cares about being pernickety when blowing the ever-living crap out the bad guys works just as well? There's a few other things he's known to have done for sure; he created the first centaurs, their descendants still worship him as a god and there's enough of them in the galaxy today that he was invested as the God of Centaurs about a thousand years back, he personally invented the Giga Slave, and he's the only man to ever successfully stare down a basilisk. He's one seriously impressive cat"

"And I out-power him, right?" Hermione sceptically asked.

"Yes, but if you're like a large bomb, then he's like an industrial laser. His aura's pretty average, he's not a sorcerer, but he's got thousands of years of experience in controlling it; his focus is near as makes no difference perfect. You and I, when we cast, waste nine tenths of the energy we use. He wastes less than a tenth of a percent. When you achieve even half his control, you will be literally unstoppable."

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The rest of the year was, thankfully, quiet. Assault Magecraft rapidly became the number one most popular class, certainly among the first years; John Kirth proved to be an extremely capably teacher, and everyone said it was a shame he couldn't stay on at the end of the year. Slytherin thoroughly trounced Hufflepuff 210-40 in the match for second place in the year's school gravball championships; Gryffindor then proceeded to demolish Ravenclaw just like everyone had expected. Harry scored with eight girls in one night at the victory party, and went around being insufferably smug about it for several days. Easter break arrived, and Hermione once more visited home; this time Artemis Fowl gave her a run down as he had some sort of business he wouldn't elaborate on in London.

Knowing his sincerely shady reputation, Hermione didn't ask.

Finally, the last Friday in May arrived, and with it the end of the Collegium year. The Blink Dog dusted off bright and early; the Walkers had a load for Azeroth Prime, and they needed to be on Norkrondoo sooner rather than later. Hermione and S'tarak'hai went with Harry in the truck, and it was there that they made a startling discovery.

They were relaxing in Harry's truck's living room, having a beer and trying to recuperate from their finals, when S'tarak'hai noticed something.

"Is that what it looks like?" He asked, indicating the rough unshaped rock that was sat on Harry's coffee table.

Something clicked inside Hermione's head.

"That's the Philosopher's Stone, isn't it?" she checked.

Harry nodded.

"The old fart admitted to where it actually was just after I ripped stutterbunny's head off. Dumbledore had it hidden in his sock drawer; that passage was a trap for anyone who wanted it. So anyway, since my room at the Collegium has direct line of sight on Dumbledore's bedroom window, and he sleeps with said window open, I had my pixie fly over and uplift it." He smirked and picked it up.

"So, why did you steal it?" S'tarak'hai checked, sounding vaguely amused.

"How many uses are there for a Philosopher's Stone?" Harry asked, holding the stone up and smirking at it.

"That I am aware of? Two. Brewing the Elixir of Life, and transmuting base metals to gold."

Harry's smirk turned into a wide grin. "That's where you're wrong. You can cook up all sorts of elixirs with this sucker. It may interest you to know; Flamel was far from the first person to create one of these things, and Flamel didn't document all the Stone's capabilities. The first person to create a Philosopher's Stone _did_."

"So who was this someone other than Flamel who made a Philosopher's Stone?" Hermione asked.

Harry smirked.

"A Hardak biomancer who's still regarded as the most powerful ever." He said. "This guy did stuff nobody's got any damn idea how to replicate. He's like this shroud across the history of magecraft, because he very nearly took his secrets with him when he died, but it so happens that Lord T-Jam Areotha paid a certain mercenary with the location of that someone's lab, and amongst other things it contained a load of notes related to his most notorious work, including his research journals. What nobody else knows is, the key to what he did was the Philosopher's Stone."

"And your point is?" S'tarak'hai asked.

"So I'm the mercenary in question." Harry said. "That information I found is dynamite, cat-boy. Pure unadulterated dynamite."

"Who was this ancient biomancer?" S'tarak'hai asked. "If he's as famous as you're hinting, I will probably have heard of him."

Harry sat back, looked insufferably smug, waited until S'tarak'hai was taking a glug of beer, and said, "His name was Iceron."

As he'd hoped, beer came out of S'tarak'hai's nose.

**It's all over, you can come out now.**

AN-

Today I'm going to start off my Author's Notes by review whoring just a little as I seem to get a kick out of comments; they ought to be a controlled substance, y'know. Hearing what you think of the way things are going here is great, and some comments have already given me neat little ideas. Yes, I'm talkin' to you, BlazeStryker. So if there's a plot hole, or you think I've missed extrapolating something, let me know. There's always the possibility it's one of the things that I've thought of and won't be explaining for quite a long time but if it's something I've genuinely missed, I can probably use it.

Gaah, that was a clonker of a chapter. I'm now going to go through the whole of Book 1 reformatting it, checking for holes in continuity, and improving the chapter spacing; mainly taking parts off one chapter and sticking them on the one before to get all the chapter lengths more or less equal, but any way that's it for Headmaster's Socks.

I'm currently considering how to cover the summer holiday; due to alterations to the timeline (especially concerning the Dursleys) I can't use many of the ideas I'd had, and if I do write it up it'll make about a third of the length of Headmaster's Socks. The original plot was going to centre on a heavy metal rock band with the Blink Dog playing tour bus, but due to FF.N's policy about lyrics that's fallen by the wayside, meaning I'll be introducing Elaine Morgan and some old friends of Harry's a bit earlier than I'd originally intended; she and the mess surrounding her rescue was originally slated for the summer of fourth year. I'm definitely moving Aria's introduction to the summer, trying to bring her in during 'Headmaster's Socks' ruined the flow of the story and stretched the pre-run-for-the-stone events to about a chapter and a half without a clear way of making two chapters of it or sticking a chapter break in the middle of the run for the stone, and she felt like an afterthought. Whatever I do, I'll have to get it written up properly before I start work on book 2 (currently titled 'Harry Johnson and the Deathtrap Girl') because I'm sure to bring in minor changes that will effect the exact flow of 'Deathtrap Girl'.

Filch's sister is inspired by some actual events that happened in the death camps during the Second World War; I read a survivor's account of Auschwitz quite a few years ago, and that book still gives me the creeps, though I'm damned if I can remember what it's called. There is no limit to humanity's propensity for cruelty and barbarism, and if you think religion poses a limit, go read up on the Spanish Inquisition.

The actual location of the Philosopher's Stone is of course why this thing is called 'Harry Johnson and the Headmaster's Socks'. Yes, the title is indeed quite that lame a joke. I intend to continue naming the books after the additional kinks I'm putting in this tale.

Ben's use of the word 'Feets' was not a typo.

The thermite idea came from one of Rorschach's Blot's short fics, a work entitled 'Better Living Through Chemistry'. And yes I did ask if it was okay to use the idea, and he said 'Yes', and thus there it is.

The troll is another sample of the trolls from me and my bro's RPG setting. Trolls are the largest form of Plannit greenskin; they average ten feet tall, and are so heavily built they look stocky. They are also almost unutterably stupid. A good example is a male troll's reaction on seeing his own dick; he will inevitably become convinced that it is a leech which needs pulled off of him. So, troll bath night sounds like:

"Duh, dat's a leech." (troll starts attempting to pull own penis off)

"Duh, it bit me." (troll assumes pain is from leech biting him)

"Duh, it bit me."

"Duh, it bit me."

"Duh, it bit me."

"Duh, it bit me."

"Duh, it bit me." (troll spooges)

"Duh, it spat at me. Dat naughty leech, duh."

(repeat until troll gets distracted by something else.)

Goblins are the only known creatures able to explain sex to a troll, with the usual comment afterwards from the trolls involved being "Duh, Oi likes dis leeches stuff, Oi duz!"

I'm not sure which year Trainspotting came out, but I'm sticking with the Trainspotting remark because I think it's funny.

Yes, Harry really is _that_ much of a gun maniac. This is a person who's genuine deepest desire is guns, girls and motorbikes – in that order. Oh, and what he means by 'lots of guns' is 'enough guns to make that lots-of-guns scene in the Matrix look like a modest collection'.

The 'I am a robot' 'poem' Harry comes out with was written by me at age 11 and was an exercise in utter drivel.

By the way, the fastest gunman in the world can hit a trigger somewhere between four and six times per second. Sixty trigger pulls per second makes for a fire rate of three thousand six hundred rounds per minute – that's faster than most Vulcan cannons. No wonder Harry shot the lands out his Calicos when he nailed Flint… it's a wonder he didn't melt the poor things.

Kirth is in here as a little nod to anyone who read the original Biker Half back in it's RAAC days; if you're reading this, it's great to have you back.

I recently discovered that the man who played Flash Gordon was named Larry Crabbe… This has distinct possibilities. Might the Crabbe we know be related to the man who stopped Ming the Merciless, or is there a squib somewhere in that particular hothouse of inbreeding that rose above his roots and became an Olympic swimmer turned actor?

I'd originally written in an 'end theme' in the form of Runrig's 'Amazing Things', but I've expunged it from this FF.N version in accordance with their stance on lyrics.

If you don't know who Iceron is, google 'Gold Diggers'. In his source material, he created the werecreatures, and I think you can guess where that one is leading.

Anyway, I've got a summer to plot and I need to get the gang's stop-off on Kendarat and the technical problems to add up, so I'd better get on with that instead of extending this wibble any further.

Well, thanks to everyone who's commented, or just read this thing. See you in the next instalment of Top Dog,

Doghead Out.

**Top Dog Will Return in,**

**Enter the Fnords Intermission One.**


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